


Melee Academy of Higher Learning

by Hikaru Yuy (SailorVFan10)



Series: Melee-Brawl Academy Institute of Higher Learning [1]
Category: Super Smash Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-09-20 22:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17031333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorVFan10/pseuds/Hikaru%20Yuy
Summary: A reboot of "Melee Academy of Higher Learning for Boys". When Marth is forced to flee his homeland due to an outrageously dangerous coup that leaves his parents dead and himself and his older sister in the hands of his guardian Jagen, Marth learns that he has been accepted to the prestigious high school known as Melee Academy. Upon moving into the dorms, he learns he has a roommate by the name of Roy, and ends up forging a bond with both him and another boy named Link, despite being afraid to make any lasting bonds for fear of them being ripped apart. Will Marth learn to navigate through a high school that isn't at all what it appears to be at first glance with his two companions by his side, or will he ultimately end up falling short?





	1. September 2nd, 2014

**Author's Note:**

> So in 2007 I wrote a fanfiction by the name of Melee Academy of Higher Learning for Boys: Year 2, which so many people ended up loving and wanting more to the point where I wrote two sequels, but only finished one of them. And I told myself that one day I would return to it. Unfortunately I ended up hating the direction the story had taken, and so it ended up being left unfinished. I figured the only way I would ever finish the series is if I rewrote it, which I attempted. Twice. Both times ended up in failure because I honestly didn't know what direction I wanted to take the story.
> 
> There were two goals I wanted: making an actual modern day AU taking place in a high school setting, but still keeping the humour and charm of the original fic series. I'm hoping to accomplish both of those goals as the fic progresses. In this reboot, everything has been revamped. Some places have been changed. These characters aren't like their video game counterparts, they are modernised "real life" versions, which is what I had wanted originally, but that idea got lost somewhere. But some things are still the same, or at least similar.
> 
> I hope this reboot lives up to expectations. I'm really excited to be doing this, since I loved so much the original fic series and want to do it justice.

Marth looked up at the doors to the dormitory known as _The Manse_ , named so for the sheer size of the building and the grandiosity that was said to be waiting for him inside--all of this, of course, was boasted about in the brochure given to him upon his acceptance to the Melee Academy of Higher Learning, located in the heart of Bainville. His luggage, which consisted of a single duffel bag and one medium sized wheeled suitcase, waited next to him somewhat haphazardly due to the Uber driver being in a _very big hurry_ , according to him, and so he had just chucked it onto the porch instead of, perhaps, handing it to the incoming high school junior, which caused quite a ruckus.

If Marth was honest, he didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be in Bainville, with its small town charm and big city industry, he didn't want to be at The Manse, he didn't want to be an incoming junior high schooler at the brilliant _Academy of Higher Learning_. He wanted to be home with his older sister and their guardian, Jagen, holed up in his room with the lights off and Linkin Park blaring through his headphones as he channeled his Inner Teenage Angst into, well, something.

Marth was completely justified in having angst, after all, but Jagen had zero time for that and told his young charge that despite all the terrible circumstances, he should still go to school and make friends to replace the ones he had to leave behind in a hurry since Altea was, last he knew, on fire thanks to the riots and the coup. He wasn't even sure if his friends were still alive. His parents definitely weren't, swept up in the coup and made examples of as to "what was wrong with today's political climate".

_It's violence that's wrong with today's political climate_ , Marth thought. _Not the peace my father believed in_.

After debating on whether to knock on the door or to trudge down to the nearest bus stop that would take him home, he lifted a trembling hand to the doorbell and jabbed the button, all the while swallowing the bitterness that lay thick and heavy on his tongue. A few moments passed and the door swung open on squeaky hinges, revealing a blonde headed young woman a few inches shorter than him, with bright blue eyes and lipstick the exact same shade of pink as the sundress she wore.

"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice full of the most sugary syrup.

"Ah, yes," Marth said, fumbling through his pockets for the brochure and his acceptance letter with his dorm information on it. "My name is Marth--Marth Lowell. I'm one of the new arrivals?" He flashed the letter with the signature of one _M. Hand_ and an odd looking seal below it. "The letter told me to arrive here on this date for room placement.

The young woman took the letter and skimmed the contents before handing it back to him with a smile. She gestured inside.

"Come on in! My name is Peach--it's nice to meet you!"

Marth entered the very large foyer that was filled to the brim with houseplants of every colour and description. Directly across from the door was a grand staircase made of wood and what appeared to be marble, with a rather plush looking runner on the steps so one wouldn't slip on the marble should their footwear be wet. Doorways to other rooms sprouted off in different directions, and something really good smelling was wafting from one he presumed was the kitchen.

"The first door here is the kitchen," Peach explained, as she led Marth around the first floor. "Breakfast is served from six to nine in the morning on weekdays and seven to ten in the morning on weekends. Lunch is only served on weekends because you will be provided with one at school--or you can make your own to bring with whatever is in the kitchen. Dinner is from six to nine in the evening, and if you miss it or get hungry later than that, the kitchen is never closed, so help yourself!" She tapped the chalkboard right next to the door. "This shows the 'special' for the day."

The door next to that was a recreation room filled with couches, overstuffed bookcases, a television with the latest gaming consoles, a billiards table, and a chess set, among other things. Right off of that was a washroom.

"All of the rooms on the first floor are common use, so feel free to poke around at your leisure whenever you feel the need."

Marth nodded.

"Let's go upstairs, which is the start of residential areas." Peach placed a hand on the banister and took each step one at a time with the grace only a member of royalty could possess. The letter _did_ mention that quite a few of his dorm mates could be the children of royalty or similar, and Marth wouldn't be shocked in the least since the Academy was geared towards the offspring of people who were well to do and important.

Although Marth doubted they would have any objections to anyone who presented the people in charge with the proper amount of cash funding, well to do or otherwise...

The residential area was just a hallway with a rather large amount of doors, each presumably leading to a room, that seemed to stretch into infinity. Marking each door was a number and a whiteboard, while a placard next to the door had the names of who resided inside and a place for what Marth assumed was mail underneath that.

"Your acceptance notice has the room you're to occupy during your stay here," Peach said. Marth looked at the letter, which he had accidentally crumpled in his hand from gripping it so hard between palm and luggage handle, trying to find his rooming assignment.

"Room 19," Marth said. "It says it's a double."

Peach led him to the very end of the hallway and stopped in front of the last door on the right side.

"Your roommate is already settled in," she said. "Don't forget to introduce yourself as you put your things away."

Marth nodded, though inside he dreaded meeting his roommate. He was never good with sharing rooms, even with close friends, but Melee Academy's dormitories offered no single rooms, and the commute from his new home in Seine, which was three towns away, to the school would be too long to be worth it.

Plus there was also the fact that Jagen wanted Marth to get out and socialise, and how could he do that if he did nothing but stay home when not at school, which was a fact that Marth resented him for at the moment.

"Thank you, Peach," Marth said. She grinned.

"If you need anything, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask! I'd be more than happy to help, or find someone who can help you, at any rate." With that, she left him alone in the hallway with his luggage and his thoughts. Steeling himself for who his roommate could potentially be and the social interaction he would have to endure, he took a deep breath and opened the door.

Marth sighed in relief when there was no one inside, though he could tell that there was definitely a Someone who had been in here recently, for the one bed was in complete disarray and there were clothes strewn about everywhere on top of the unmade bed linens. He closed the door and went over to the other bed, which was nicely made up, and tossed his duffel bag on top of it. Unzipping it, he dug inside and pulled out an assortment of personal effects: some books from home, a couple of notebooks, his writing utensils, and a couple of framed pictures of himself with his sister Elice, among other things. He didn't feel like unpacking all of it, so he zipped up the rest and stowed the bag under the bed for now.

He was halfway through with unpacking his clothes from his suitcase when the door to his room swung open and a boy with striking red hair appeared in the doorway, happily munching away on a muffin, and startled Marth to the point where he dropped the shirt he was in the process of refolding.

"Hello," said the red head, after he swallowed the piece of muffin he had been chewing.

"H-Hello."

"You're my roommate?"

Marth nodded.

The boy smiled and held out his hand. "I'm Roy, son of Marquess Pherae."

Marth shook his hand. "I'm Marth..." He looked at Roy with confusion. "Marquess Pherae?"

Roy's smile turned sheepish. "That's right."

"I don't believe I've ever heard of the name."

"Most...most haven't, to be honest." He sat on his bed. "My father is the marquess of a very small scrap of land that's been in the family for hundreds of years now. They keep trying to get him to sell it, but my father refuses."

"I too am of noble descent," Marth said. "But it means nothing anymore, just some titles that give me nothing but pain and grief."

Roy finished the muffin while Marth finished unpacking, and once Marth's suitcase was safely tucked away in a corner of the closet, he flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Are you a sophomore or a junior?" Roy asked. "I know my rooming assignment said I could be matched with someone in my year or older."

"Junior."

"That's not too bad then," Roy said. "I'll be starting my sophomore year. I didn't place very well in the placement exam, and I expected my father to be upset about it, or have him worry that I wouldn't make it in." He toyed with the hem of his quilt.

"Was he?"

Roy chuckled. "He was the opposite, actually. He was happy that I tried my best, and said that if I was meant to get in, that I would. And, well, here I am."

"My father wouldn't be happy if I did poorly on a placement test that was for something so important," Marth said. "He always said that education is of the utmost importance if I wish to succeed in life."

Cutting through the awkward tension was the sound of a rather generic sounding ringtone.

"Ah, sorry, that's probably my father." Roy fished his phone out of his pocket. "Do you mind?"

Marth absently shook his head, as he pulled out his own phone and a pair of earbuds. "No. Go ahead."

"Hey, Dad," Roy said shortly after tapping the answer button. Marth put the buds into his ears and got lost in the dulcet tones of Coldplay so as to not eavesdrop on Roy's conversation with his father.

That and then Marth's heart couldn't hurt over the fact that he would never have phone conversations with his own father telling him to do his best at scholastics ever again.


	2. September 3rd, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of school. Link loses his letter from Melee Academy that has important information on it, everyone keeps whispering about Marth and his mysteriously tragic life, Roy wants to find out about said tragic life without overstepping his boundaries as an acquaintance-who-is-also-kind-of-a-friend... And then there's the teachers who range from interesting to just plain old weird.
> 
> Everything's gonna go swimmingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it took a bit of time, but I finally have chapter two! Despite this being a modern day AU, I'm sticking more to respective game canon than I think I did in the previous incarnation of this fic. Instead of Marth spending his exile in Talys, for instance, he's ended up in Seine, which is part of the continent of Nintendia, and goes to school (and has room and board) in Bainville, which is a few towns away.
> 
> All of the Altean that Marth speaks is modified Hungarian and Norwegian; Hylian is modified Korean. I didn't want to just shove in a language that already existed completely wholesale, so I just played around with some words. The words as they are in my fic don't mean anything in actuality.
> 
> I'll have some stuff available on my Pillowfort blog that gives a bit more background about the different schools everyone is previous from and so forth at some point.
> 
> Enjoy this chapter!

"Oh shit."

School hadn't even started yet, and one of the students from The Manse was already in a panic fifteen minutes before the first bell was set to ring. The blond boy with elven looking features checked all of the pockets on his uniform and Roy watched as Marth checked the time on his phone.

"What's wrong, Link?"

Link pulled notebooks and pens and various other school supplies out of his backpack, his brow furrowing further and further.

"I can't find my homeroom assignment paper, you know, the one we got in the mail last week?" He checked his notebooks next. "It was just here, I swear..."

Marth stifled a yawn as he checked his own pockets for the letter printed on rather fancy stationery that proclaimed his homeroom assignment was in the gym, and that his teacher was a Ms Aran.

"You didn't leave it on the kitchen table at breakfast, did you?"

Link shook his head rather vigourously. "I didn't even have it out then--"

Marth cocked an eyebrow as Roy folded his arms.

"I left it on my _dresser_."

"Aren't you and Roy in the same homeroom?"

Link looked to Roy for confirmation. "Are we?"

"Mine's 217N," Roy answered. "Does that sound remotely familiar?"

Link's brow furrowed to a degree Roy didn't think possible. "Maybe? I mean...I guess I'll find out. If they don't call my name for the attendance, then I don't belong there."

"But then...where _would_ you belong?" Roy asked.

"I've spent my whole life wondering that every now and then."

The first bell rang, signaling Link was out of time to ponder further what number his homeroom was. Plenty of panicked freshmen scrambled in the hallways as Roy asked, "Which building is the 'N' building?"

"It stands for 'new building'. The new building that isn't really _new_ , but is newer than the main one?" Link said. "We're standing in it."

Roy looked at the cracking linoleum he was standing on. "Oh. How did you know that?"

Link smiled. "This isn't my first year at the Academy, you know." He looked at Marth. "Where's your homeroom?"

"The gymnasium."

"Take the back staircase over there," Link said, pointing down the hall and hooking his hand right, "and follow it all the way down, then it's pretty much straight on from there. You can't miss it."

Marth followed Link's directions exactly, as Link steered Roy to room 217N, which just so happened to be on the same floor they used to enter the 'new' building, right down the corridor.

"Who decided to make a 'second' floor a ground entrance?" Roy asked.

"Don't question it," Link said. "This school makes less sense than they'd have you believe. The third floor of the main building? That's the ground floor too."

* * *

Roy and Link sat together in the back corner of room 217N; Link rifled through his backpack, already filled with miscellaneous items and papers despite only being in class for a total of five minutes, still determined to find the paper with his homeroom assignment on it since he wasn't completely sure he left it on his dresser, either. Roy pondered the graffiti that littered his desk, most of which was just a bunch of acronyms that meant nothing to him, and things like "history sux" and "yo mama" and "does anyone know if Newgrounds is still around?"

The teacher who stood at the head of the classroom was a rather short and squatty man with a very bushy mustache who introduced himself as Mr Mario. Why someone would have a last name that is a first name, Roy didn't know, but since names such as Taylor were now forenames, why the hell not? He dressed rather casually for a teacher, wearing a red button down covered with blue overalls, and Roy heard someone whisper about him being "like a farmer or plunger guy", which someone else replied to with, "I believe you're looking for the word 'plumber'."

Mr Mario cleared his throat and all the whispering and chattering died down. Link groaned and let his backpack drop to the floor, clearly defeated.

"Good morning, class," Mr Mario said cheerfully, pausing to let the students greet him back, which most did in an admittedly half-hearted fashion. "Let me just take a moment to take the attendance and then I will pass out your important documentation. When I call your name, please raise your hand and say 'here'. Aachen, Phosphornio."

"Here, teach!"

After the first few names were marked down, Mr Mario scribbled something on his sheet of paper before looking up and saying, "Lowell, Marth."

Roy and Link shared a look.

"Marth's not in our year...is he?" Link asked.

"He told me he was a junior," Roy answered. "We're...we're sophomores."

"Marth?" Mr Mario repeated, looking around the room for someone, anyone, to raise their hand or say 'here!', to no avail. "Mama-mia, I hope he's not in any trouble..."

"But he said his homeroom was the gymnasium," Roy added. "So then..."

"Maybe he misread it. I did that my first year, too. Went to first period instead of homeroom. Admittedly, it was in tiny, tiny type, and it looks like they've increased the font size since."

Mr Mario made a mark on his attendance sheet and scratched at his mustache before saying, "Mekkai, Link."

Link jumped up from his desk as a choir of angels only he could hear sang their heavenly songs.

"Yes! I _am_ supposed to be here! Salvation from the goddesses!"

Mr Mario chuckled before marking Link as present. "A 'here' would've been okay too."

"Are you gonna keep looking for that sheet of paper?" Roy asked, as Link took his seat.

"Yeah," Link said, like it was a no brainer at all. "I need to know what happened to it, or I will forever wonder."

Roy sighed, shaking his head.

* * *

Marth's morning wasn't going well.

As it had turned out, his homeroom was _not_ the gym, as he had thought; Marth had misread his schedule, for some reason thought that his locker assignment was his homeroom assignment, and to top it all off, he was marked as being an "unauthorised absence", which he then had to spend the remainder of the pre-first period time fighting the school office about.

To put it simply, Marth was rather done with everything.

"Is that Marth Lowell?" a student asked, as Marth trudged down the hall from where the vice principal and head of discipline's office was to his first period of the day: Japanese 1.

"The 'Prince' of Altea?" asked another student.

_At least if you're going to gossip about me, try to keep your voices down so I can't hear it._ Marth reasoned that he should be used to all of the chatter about him by now, since that was what made up all of the talk back home, back in Seine, anywhere he went where someone recognised his face from Facebook or the news or some Youtube video replaying the events of that day over, and over, and _over_.

"Who expected to see him _here_ of all places? I thought he was supposed to be hiding after what happened to his father--they wanted to make an example of the whole family."

Roy cut through the crowd forming behind the teen, Link in tow.

"Alright, folks," Link yelled. "Nothing to see here, move along now before you're late for class!" He waved his arms around in an attempt to dispel the throng of people. "You! Put the smartphone _away_ \--you're not supposed to even have those in the building!"

"Marth?"

Marth slid the door to the Japanese classroom open a little harder than he would have normally, for it bounced in its track and nearly shut again.

"Marth." Roy's voice was firm, but full of concern. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Marth said, opening the door a bit gentler this time. "Absolutely fine."

_Like hell am I going to show these people any weakness._

Roy looked back at Link, who cast a worried look over his shoulder as he struggled to contain the crowd of people wanting to know if that was, in fact, Marth Lowell, Exiled 'Prince' of Altea, before Roy followed Marth through the doorway and into the brightly lit classroom.

"I see they were expecting a lot of people in this class," Roy said, gesturing at all of the empty desks nearly filled all of the available space in the room.

"There were more last year," said a girl who was playing a rather bright pink 3DS, "but I'm sure most of the weebs dropped the class after it started going beyond basic vocabulary, so there might not be as many enrolling this year."

"And you're in the beginning level class because...?" Marth asked.

"I failed it," the girl answered. "So I have to retake it again, because it's not like I would succeed at, say, Italian." She barely glanced at any of the arrivals to the classroom, too absorbed in her game to care. "Feel free to sit anywhere, Mewtwo-sensei doesn't really give a shit where anyone sits."

Link took the seat closest to the door, with Roy to his left and Marth on the other side of Roy.

"I tried to keep people from Instagramming your face, but unfortunately I wasn't able to, so there might be some viral posts of you that show up on Facebook feeds eventually." Link smiled apologetically. "I don't know what that was all about anyway--"

"It's nothing," Marth said, in a tone of voice that said there was to be no further discussion. "I am here to receive an education, not listen to the idle gossip and prattle of the greater masses at large."

Link blinked. "You sure did sound real fancy there, Marth. Clearly my bearing is not of the regal sorts that yours is."

A large, rather purple sort of being wearing an oversized white button down and a slim black tie floated in through the doorway then, a tiny pair of spectacles perched on whatever he used for a nose, a binder tucked under his arm. He stood hovering over the ground behind a large podium as several students flooded in just before the late bell rang out through the halls. With a wave of his hand, the door slid closed with a slam, barring any late student from entering.

The only noise in the room was the very faint sound of game music.

"Kiritsu!"

No one said or did anything, although the game music finally cut out. The floating teacher cleared his throat, or at least made a sound like he had, and tried again.

"Kiritsu!"

Still nothing.

"Good," the teacher said, though his mouth did not move at all. "I have none of those annoying 'weeaboos' in my class like I did last year. The first thing we will learn today is how you will greet me when class begins and ends." With another hand gesture, a dry erase marker wrote down, in both English and kana, _Mewtwo-sensei_ on the dry erase board.

"My name is Mewtwo. You may address me as Mewtwo-sensei, or simply as 'sensei'. Wakarimasu ka?"

Everyone nodded.

"When I say 'kiritsu', you are all to stand--tatte kudasai."

No one in the class did anything at first. One of the boys looked around and slowly got to his feet, which led to the rest of the class doing the same, because someone had to be That Guy.

"Since you are my first period and it is morning, I will say 'ohayou gozaimasu', and you will repeat it. After that, I will say 'rei!' and you will bow to me." Roy swore he heard a slight chuckle after that statement. "Let's try it. Sit--suwatte kudasai."

The class sat in unison.

"Kiritsu!"

The class stood as one, some stumbling over their chair legs, others getting caught up on their backpacks or desks. Link nearly sent his own desk across the room and scuffed up the linoleum in the process.

"Ohayou gozaimasu."

The students repeated it, some more enthusiastically than others, some more dead sounding.

"Rei!"

No one was sure exactly how deep to bow. Some bowed so deep their foreheads touched the tops of their desks, others bowed a little too shallow, and some barely bowed at all. Mewtwo didn't seem to care as he crossed his arms and smirked a little.

"Suwatte kudasai," Mewtwo said, in a tone that suggested he was rather bored with this already. He didn't wait for them to seat themselves, because with a wave of a hand, everyone found themselves on their chairs, pushed in under their desks to an almost uncomfortable degree.

Or, in one student's case, on the floor.

"I will be taking attendance, mostly because I am obligated to and not because I want to learn your names." He gave the class a look that said, _I would rather be trapped in a cave for a hundred years than teach right now_. "When I say your name, tell me 'hai'. Or don't, I don't really care either way, I am paid whether I have students in attendance or not."

Someone snorted.

"Alvarez Stephanie-san."

The girl with the 3DS raised her hand. "Hai."

"Redfield Nicholas-kun."

The boy who managed to get everyone standing the first time said, "Hai."

Mewtwo continued down the list of names: Dean Caprio ("Hai, seeeeensei!"), Frankie Ngo ("...hai?"), Alexander Valdez ("Hai, but please call me 'Alex', sensei."), Stephen Kennedy ("Haaaaaaai!"), Kweenetra Carp ("Yes, hello, I'm present."), Janae Armstrong ("It's not Jane, sensei."), L'Andrea Kino ("Oh, uh, hai?"), Nestea Wyrmslayr ("It's not like the iced tea brand!"), Aras Namrekcid...

"Who?" asked Kweenetra.

Mewtwo marked her absent.

"Stu Gary-kun."

Gary raised his hand from his place on the floor. "H-Hai, sensei."

Mewtwo marked him as absent, despite knowing very well that Gary was there. He wasn't seated at a desk, and therefore didn't count.

"Mekkai Link-kun."

"Yes--I mean, hai."

Mewtwo rolled his eyes. "Pherae Roy-kun."

"Hai, sensei."

"And last and least: Lowell Marth-kun."

Gary Stu looked up from his spot on the floor. Stephanie nearly dropped her 3DS. Dean outright gasped.

"H-Hai, Mewtwo-sensei."

Link shot each and every one of them glares while Roy looked at Marth in complete and utter confusion.

_Just what is it about this guy that everyone is so shocked about?_

"Today, we will be going over some common phrases you will find in the Japanese language. You've probably heard these before if you've ever watched anime..."

_I'm gonna find out one way or another._ Clearly Roy had some Googling to do when he had a spare moment.

* * *

Second period led the trio to the "basement" of the Academy, to room 123 where their Geometry teacher, Miss Sarkofski, resided. She sat on a wooden chair, fingers laced together under her chin, wearing what appeared to be robes that, if there was suitable wind or movement, would billow. No one was sure why she wore robes straight out of some kind of wizarding world. Perhaps she was a Potterhead, or maybe she just liked the appearance of fabric billowing behind her as she walked around the campus.

"I have your names marked on your desks on a piece of parchment. You will sit in your assigned seats without any sort of fuss." She had a fake British accent. "Go now. Sit."

Roy and Link headed to their seats, and when Marth went to join them, Miss Sarkofski stopped him by placing a delicate hand on his shoulder.

"You have a haunted look about you," she said, in hush hush tones. "There is something on your mind... Perhaps unburdening yourself and letting others share in your pain will help you move forward and cease being haunted by the ghosts of the past."

Once released, Marth walked as fast as he could to his seat, which was behind Roy, thankfully.

"What was that all about?" Roy whispered.

"I have no idea," Marth replied. "She said I'm being haunted by my past's ghosts or something--bunch of nonsense if you ask me."

"Maybe it's worth talking to someone about what you're going through."

"I'm doing _fine_."

Textbooks were handed out once everyone had arrived. Inside each one were a few sheets of paper with a syllabus printed on it.

"Let me go over the syllabus with you, shall we?"

The syllabus was ten pages. The class groaned.

"I'd rather solve a million Geometry problems than deal with this shit," muttered one student.

"Why the fuck is this syllabus ten pages?!" said another.

Marth looked over to where Link was sitting. The Hylian had his head against the back wall, and he appeared to be sleeping. Another student didn't make any show of hiding the fact that he was in a deep, deep slumber.

"Now... Let me test where you are in your Geometry learnings. That will determine if I need to start at the very beginning with the most basic of formulas, or if I can start out with a bit more intermediary math problems."

"But none of us have taken Geometry before--"

"Hush! You don't know that! Someone could be here for a second time, having failed to acquire the knowledge they needed in order to pass this course." Ms Sarkofski kept her hands hidden up her sleeves, which is also where she pulled out half a ream's worth of worksheets from a few moments later. "We do not judge in this classroom, it is a safe space." She handed out a worksheet with a few problems on the front of it to each and every student, making exaggerated movements as she did so that her robes moved dramatically about her.

"See if you can solve these problems. If you can, then you are more advanced and we can start from there. If you fail to answer even these, then I will have to start from the very beginning."

It wasn't Marth's first time taking Geometry--there were some courses on his current schedule he had taken at his previous school, but due to the course of events back home, he was unable to secure his transcripts and thus, had to retake them. However, staring at the paper and trying to figure out what went where in the formulas, he may as well have been trying to read a completely alien language.

_I used to be really good at this, one of the best in my class. Now I feel completely incompetent, like I've never seen any kind of mathematics before in my life._

Turns out it didn't matter if Marth felt incompetent at maths or not, for no one else had a clue what to do either. Some attempts were made to solve angles of a shape, or to find the perimeter of a rectangle, but many students just left everything blank, pencils on their desks, without trying to solve. Link made a paper airplane out of his, whilst another created a very complex origami bird.

Miss Sarkofski sighed heavily.

"I have no choice but to start from square one, an unsurprising result, but I had so much better hopes for this class period than my last. Ah well..." She pulled a piece of chalk out of the sleeve of her robes. "Today I will teach you the arcane knowledge of...line segments."

* * *

Third period led them to the gym, with Marth heading on a detour to his locker nearby, where the bleachers were pulled out for everyone to sit on. Folding tables were in the middle of the gym floor with a mismatch of chairs pushed under them.

"So what do you think all that gossip's about?" Link asked, as he flopped down on the bottom most bleacher step. "People all, 'Oooh look, it's the Exiled Prince' or whatever, what does that even _mean_? Marth's not...Marth's not _actual royalty_ , is he?"

Roy shrugged as he sat down next to Link. "I have no idea. He told me he was nobility and that that means nothing anymore, but I have a feeling there's more to it than that."

Link gave Roy a look. "He told you he was a junior, too, and he's not."

"Who isn't a junior?"

Marth looked from Roy to Link and back again, backpack half falling off his shoulder.

"You're in the same year as us, right?" Roy asked.

"I am a second year in this institution, yes."

"Then you're a sophomore," Link said. "That's what we are. Not juniors."

"At my other school," Marth began, as he sat down next to Roy, "it was divided into three levels, and the names of those levels translate into English as 'novice', 'intermediary', and 'expert', essentially. I figured, in this school, that senior was the equivalent to _jartas_ , junior to _kovetit_ , and sophomore to _nybbe_. Apparently I was wrong to assume this."

"Ohhh," Link said. "So in your language it's basically something _completely_ different. Like how our word for a smartphone translates to English as 'slate'."

"What's your word for dumb phone?" Roy asked.

"Look, my Motorola Razr will never die," Link protested, as he adjusted his totally-not-dress-code green slouchy style beanie so it wasn't half slipping off. "I'm not getting another phone until this one dies."

"No one's used that phone since 2007, it's been seven years, Link."

The trio turned towards the new voice. A young woman with long blonde hair pulled back into a sort of half updo and similar elvish traits to Link made her way down the bleachers, textbooks in her arms.

"Oh hey, Zel," Link greeted, as he patted the space next to him. "How's life going for you?"

She shrugged as she sat down. "I already have homework--AP Chemistry is going to be brutal."

Link patted her shoulder. "You got this." He turned to Roy and Marth. "This is my best friend, Zelda. We grew up together."

Zelda wiggled her fingers as a form of waving. "Friends of my parents adopted Link and his two siblings, we've been joined at the hip ever since."

Roy grinned. "I'm Roy, it's nice to meet you."

"I'm Marth," Marth said, albeit very quietly. Zelda smiled softly.

"You're the boy everyone is talking about like some kind of celebrity--and I thought I'd had it rough..."

Marth cocked an eyebrow.

"I'm a bit of a...what's the word? Person of interest, where I'm from," Zelda said.

"She's from the family in charge of Hyrule," Link simplified. "She's not a princess or anything--"

"My father is the _guija_ , the...mayor, I suppose is a good translation, yes." Her gaze fell to the textbooks on her lap. "My condolences, Marth, about what happened... It is an eventuality that even my father has us prepared for, though we hope it will never come to pass."

Marth nodded. "I wouldn't wish this on anyone."

A whistle blew throughout the gym and a hush fell over it as a result.

"Alright, listen up for your name as I do attendance!" a rather tall young woman shouted from the foot of the bleachers so that those sat at the top could hear her.

"I should probably go," Zelda whispered. "I don't want to miss my name being called, and my teacher is all the way over at the other end."

"It's fine," Link said, giving her a smile. "Go on, don't get in trouble."

"It was nice to meet you!" Zelda said to Roy and Marth, before sneaking back to her actual gym class.

"Gwinny Lebosa!"

A hand shot up. "Present, ma'am!"

"Amazing how you can tell a lot about someone by how they talk," Link muttered.

"What?"

Ms Aran kept going down the list of names as Link explained.

"She's got some kind of military background. Marth and Zelda have that ritzy vibe. Marc Livomora sounds like a pompous dick and he's got parents with wealth who got no idea what to do with it... You know. You come across all types of rich and maybe-famous at this school, as I learned last year." He wrapped an arm around Roy's shoulder and pulled him close, gesturing to each person whose name was called.

"Raimund Schindler? Supposedly his dad got rich by extorting millions of dollars from a company that ended up going bankrupt. He then bought the company for billions more, and sold _that_ off, so they're sitting pretty now. He's usually avoided, though. And Sher Wilkinson? Her mom got married off to some rich guy, and now she's forgotten where she's come from, and her kid don't know any better."

"And you know all of this how?" Roy asked, as Marth asked, "And this is any of your business why?"

"Do I _look_ like the kind of guy who fits in with a crowd like this?"

Roy shrugged. Marth folded his arms.

"I suppose you don't," Marth admitted.

"People think I'm dumber than I am, rumours were abound that I flunked out of the Academy and that my parents pulled some strings to get me back in, or something like that."

"So then what is the truth of the matter?"

"My sister was really sick, and they needed me to come home for a while. Zelda too. They don't have those rumours about _her_ , though." His eyes softened. "I dropped out so I could be with her, in case she...you know..."

Roy swallowed the thick goop that formed suddenly in his throat as Marth averted his gaze.

"But she's all better now!" Link said, returning to his cheerful disposition.

"Link Mekkai!"

"Yeah, I'm here!"

"What kind of name is 'Link'?" someone said with a snicker.

"The name of a cool dude from _The Matrix_ ," Link retorted. "I don't know, my birth mother, before she died, allegedly said that I was some kind of link to heal the past or history or some shit, I don't know. She was on a lot of painkillers when she was near her end, and I was only seven, so I had no idea what she was talking about in the first place."

Ms Aran crossed off several names on her list before calling out, "Marth Lowell!"

"Present."

"I'm gonna end up fighting people today," Link said. His most likely empty threat did nothing to stop the whispers about Marth. He sighed.

"It was like this in Seine, too. I'm used to it at this point."

"And Roy Pherae, are you here?"

Roy raised his hand.

"Okay, we don't have that much time to talk, what with it being a half day and all. Bring your gym clothes on Monday, we'll start changing then, and I'll hand out locks for your gym lockers. Any questions?"

No one said anything.

"Okay, good. As you were, then."

The uptick in noise levels ended up almost deafening.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand," Link said, standing up from his spot. "Now that we're marked in, we can do whatever we want, pretty much, and I can't stand all this noise." He shouldered his backpack.

"We can't just go wherever we please," Marth said. "There are people patrolling the halls, aren't there?"

"Nah, it's not a prison, Marth." Link stretched before heading for the door. "Well? You guys coming?"

Marth was inclined to say no, but then someone had the bright idea to start blasting some really bad dubstep using a bluetooth speaker with the bass all the way up.

"W-W-What's uuuuuup!" shrieked a chipmunk sounding voice. "It's the n-n-n-nightcore remiiiiiix!"

"We're coming," Roy said, as he and Marth high tailed it out of there, Link leading the way.

* * *

"So."

Link hopped on the half wall at the very top of the school stadium's entrance, as Roy leaned against it. Marth stood around and toyed with his uniform tie, looking at everything with suspicious eyes.

"You're not gonna get attacked here, you know," Link reassured.

"After being attacked in my own home, I don't consider anywhere safe."

"Is that why everyone is so interested in your life?" Link asked. "You survived some kind of attack?"

"It's all over the news." Marth didn't sound bitter in the least, no sir. "You can read up on it yourself, or watch some Youtube videos covering it, or 'share to save a life' it on Facebook."

Link ran a hand through bright blond locks. "I don't do the social media thing except for a little bit of Instagram and Snapchat. I don't keep up with current events and shit unless people tell me things, which they usually don't go out of their way to do so."

"Gossip and idle pratter is much more your style," Marth said.

"The kids here don't give a shit about anything _but_. You think they care what's happening outside their little safety net? That's adult problems."

"My father always said that if we cast a blind eye towards the world's problems at large, they'll end up becoming our problems and by then it's too late to take preventative measures. Even in Pherae I heard the whispers in the halls and advisors wondering what should be done, but I didn't know that Marth was at the centre of it."

Link pulled off his knit beanie and let the wind play with his hair.

"So then you know what's going on?"

"Not really, no."

"And Marth won't say anything."

Marth shook his head.

"Well, I hope you enjoy being a man of mystery."

"At the very least," Roy interjected, "he can wait until everything's died down a bit. Right?"

Marth flinched when the bell rang, and students filtered through the doors.

"If I'm going to say anything, I want to do so when there's no one around."

"But don't you want people to get their shit straight?"

Marth shook his head. "I don't really care about that."

"Then what?"

Marth headed for the doors. "It's none of anyone's business but mine and whomever I choose to make it their business. That's all."

_I don't want anyone to see me like this_.

* * *

The final bell of the day rang out, and Roy found Marth at his locker, sat on the floor, waiting.

"Marth?"

Marth looked up at the mention of his name. "I hope you don't me waiting here."

Roy shook his head as he approached. "I don't, but how did you know--"

Marth chuckled a little. "I watched you exchanging things earlier as I walked to last period. Link mentioned wanting us to all walk together, so I made a mental note of your locker's location for later..."

After third period let out, Link did mention wanting everyone to meet at Roy's locker so they could walk together. Roy was only expecting Link to be waiting for him.

"What?"

Roy shook his head. "Nothing. I'm just...a little surprised."

"To be honest...so am I." Marth stood then, and stepped aside so Roy had access to his locker. "But you're my roommate, and you and Link seem to be really...solid, so I figured that I should probably try this 'make friends' thing my guardian loves to harp on me about all the time."

Roy unlocked his locker and dumped his newly acquired textbooks inside.

"I'm not gonna force you to become friends with me--"

"I want to. People my age have friends, right? So there's nothing unusual about this, is there?"

Roy closed the door and locked it. "Well, no, there isn't."

"And I'm not going to survive this place unless I have someone to survive it with, right? Besides... All of my friends are back home, and I've been cut off completely from them thanks to this whole mess I was dragged into. It'd be... It'd be nice. Jagen would be pleased and say that it's good for me."

Roy grinned. "I agree. On both accounts." He added that last bit a little hastily.

A loud noise that sounded like shoe soles sliding against linoleum came from the end of the hall, and Marth thought for a moment that he could smell burning rubber.

"Shit shit shit I'm _so sorry_!" It was Link, charging towards them now. "Mr Georgeston kept me after class to discuss something about our summer reading or whatever, and how I seemed to really understand the material, and we lost track of time and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd just used Spark Notes for everything..."

"It's okay," Roy said with a laugh. "It's only been what, five minutes?" He looked to Marth for confirmation, who looked at his phone for the time.

"Not even. Three at the most."

Link looked from Marth to Roy and back. "Well okay then, I'm glad."

Link wrapped one arm around Marth's shoulder and the other around Roy's, pulling them close as he began walking.

"So what're we up to now that school's out for the day?"

"I was thinking of food," Roy said. "I'm starving." As if to prove he wasn't lying, Roy's stomach growled threateningly.

"Well there's a lot of nice places to eat for quick and cheap on the Avenue," Link said. "Every type of cuisine and then some, although the Hylian place's stuff is a bit...ehhh."

They made it off campus without much of a fuss, and headed left before taking a right at the light that changed every ten seconds it seemed. Link loosened his tie completely and shrugged off the aqua coloured blazer, while Roy just slung his over his shoulder, very casually. Marth threaded his blazer through one of the straps of his backpack so it was out of the way.

"I mean, it's good, but Zelda's aunt Impa makes the _best_ Sheikah Stew in the world, and you haven't _lived_ until you've had her Roast Cuccoo..."

Link wasn't kidding when he said the Avenue had a lot of eateries--it seemed like every other building housed some kind of food to eat, or dessert to try.

"Maybe something that's not too heavy would be preferred," Marth said, a little overwhelmed by the options: Italian, Asian, Hylian, places that specialised in buffets, burger joints... And that was just as far as Marth could see on the one side of the street.

"There's a place called All Your Ruttin' Soups, and it serves absolutely every kind of soup and then some, from your regular broth to a hearty potato soup..."

Marth smiled. "Soup sounds lovely."

Link grinned, determination ablaze in his eyes. "To All Your Ruttin' Soups!"

The interior was very rustic seeming, with booths that looked more like ripped apart picnic tables and benches turned into something presentable for a restaurant. There weren't many patrons, and only one person working behind the counter, who was filing her nails as she watched something on her tablet. One of the lightbulbs above table four flickered.

"This place looks like it's gotten a bit...rundown since I last came in here." Link dumped his things on one of the benches.

"Yeah, even the wallpaper is peeling," Roy said.

"Better than peeing," Link remarked.

"Are you sure you wanna eat here?" Roy asked. "There's no one even here..."

Marth poked at a piece of cushion filler peeking out from a tear in the seat, a look of disdain clear as day on his face. "I'm not sure how comfortable I would feel sitting here.

"We can take our food to-go if you want, but I'm sure it's fine," Link said, as he approached the counter. "Excuse me, miss, could I have a menu--"

"Leave me alone," she said, "I'm watching the latest Rooster Teeth video."

Roy scrolled through something on his phone. "The reviews for this place aren't even good, said they don't even get service--"

"Well, if the girl at the counter watched less Youtube and paid more attention to her job, maybe the reviews wouldn't suck," Link reasoned. The girl wasn't even paying attention to him. "Do you...want us to order something or not?"

"No," she said, without taking her eyes off the screen. "Go away."

"So you don't care about the fact that we want to purchase goods from you? With actual cold hard curre--" Marth began to ask, but was interrupted by the girl.

"Oh my _god_ , just leave me alone--"

"Marnie, what in tarnation is going on here?"

A man with hair everywhere except for the top of his head came out from the back room, ladle in hand, apron around his waist.

"They--" the girl, whose name was clearly Marnie, pointed accusingly at the trio.  "--won't leave me alone."

The man looked from Marnie to the trio and back. His face turned redder than the face of a person who just ate a ghost pepper for the first time.

"Why are you on that tablet thing again? I told you to play hostess! You're to take people's orders and give them to me and then give them the product that I've made for them. This isn't hard, Marnie!"

Marnie pouted. "But Daddy, that's so _boring_."

"That's what you said when I asked why you dropped out of school, that can't be your excuse for everything, you inconsiderate--"

Link stepped away from the counter before grabbing his things. "Let's go, guys. I don't feel like getting involved in their father-daughter dispute. There's another soup joint two doors down from this one called Better Than Ruttin', and they have the better miso anyway."

"Does it look like it's falling apart?" Marth asked.

"Oh, no, not that I know of? They have some really nice bohemian inspired decor, which you wouldn't expect in the least. Oh! And their seats are really comf, like, when I say comf, I mean _comf_."

"Wait!" the man said. "Please don't go..."

But they were already out the door, the bell above it announcing their exit.

* * *

"I think I'll sleep well tonight," Roy said, as he flopped onto his bed. He had changed into pajamas that looked like they were more for comfort and function than appearances. Marth had heard of clothing that functioned as regular clothes, but had the "aesthetics" of sleepwear, something he thought didn't make much sense. Pajamas were for sleeping, or maybe lounging around the house in on a weekend. They were not for leaving the house to run errands in.

"Today was certainly interesting, that's for sure," Marth said, turning in his computer chair. "Did you do the assignment Mewtwo-sensei asked us to do?"

Roy sat up on his bed. "I started it. Kind of...stupid though. It's just memorising the most basic of vocab that anyone who doesn't speak Japanese would probably know, and using them in sentences that are otherwise in English." He grabbed his Japanese notebook and opened it to the first page. "Listen to this: 'Sumimasen, do you know which door is the oterai?'"

"I mean, on the one hand, it shows that you know what those words mean, but on the other hand..."

"Yeah, on the other hand, I sound like a weeb."

Link barged into the room just then, the door smacking against the wall behind it with enough force that the door knob may or may not have gone through drywall.

"Link! Don't you know how to knock?" Roy covered his completely clothed self with his notebook, as if that would help any if he was, in fact, indecent.

Link blinked. "Knock on the door? Why would I do that?"

"What do you mean 'why would I do that'?" Marth asked. "That's what you do to see if you can even come in."

"Well, I've never knocked on any doors in my whole life, this is the first I've even heard of this. In fact, where I grew up, we didn't even _have_ doors, just curtains that kind of covered the entrances."

Marth and Roy shared a glance at each other.

"What?"

Roy just shook his head. "Good night, Link."

"But who's gonna help me with my Geometry homework?"

"Try asking Zelda," Marth said. "We'll see you in the morning."

Link sighed. "You guys suck just as much as I do at maths, don't you."

"Maybe." Roy reached over to his nightstand and turned out the light. "Night, Link."

"Nighty night," Link said, sounding just a little put out before slamming the door shut. Clearly Link was not good at using doors.

"Marth." Roy blinked up at the ceiling, arms behind his head as he lay on the bed covers.

"Yes, Roy?"

"You gonna sign up for any clubs?"

Marth leaned back in his computer chair. "Maybe. I haven't really thought about it."

"Sign ups are tomorrow, they've got a whole bunch of things, so many more clubs than my old school has." Roy turned over on his bed. "So many choices, it's gonna be hard to choose to not do all of them..." He yawned as Marth turned out the light on his desk and wandered over to his bed.

"You can decide tomorrow." Marth pulled the covers back before sliding underneath them. "Until then... Good night, Roy."

Roy yawned again. "Good night, Marth. Hopefully tomorrow's a better day."

Sleep came all too quickly for the both of them.


	3. September 4th, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roy causes Marth to nearly spontaneously combust out of embarrassment before Mr Hand holds an assembly, where little goes according to plan and Link has an outburst over Mr Hand's hiring practises. Marth receives word from his sister about what's going on at home, and there is little comfort in what she has to tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could've sworn that I'd already posted this, and it wasn't until I decided to continue work on chapter four that I realised I...apparently never did post this. Oops. My bad. Better late than never! (But that means I've been sat on this chapter since 9 February...)

_September 4th, 2014_

_"Elice! Elice, where are you?!"_

_The smoke was thick and choking him as he tried to find his sister in surroundings that felt both familiar and alien at the same time._

_"Where's Mother and Father?" Glass shattered nearby as flames shot out of an adjacent room, causing him to jump back._

_"Marth." It was Jagen's voice. "Is that you?"_

_"Jagen?" Marth reached out, groping along the walls in the direction of the voice. "Where is my sister?"_

_"She's outside--come towards me, we need to get out of here before this house becomes our grave."_

_Marth couldn't find Jagen, couldn't find anything as the smoke burned his lungs, choked him until he couldn't breathe at all, his throat stinging as he fought for air and found absolutely none. Faintly he could hear the voices of his cousins trying to usher him out._

_"Jagen..." He could barely get the name out before his vision filled with black and all he could smell was fire and death--_

Marth awoke soaked head to toe in sweat for what felt like the millionth time that night, panting almost too hard as he focused on the ceiling. A glance at his phone told him it was only going to be five in the morning, and he groaned as he threw an arm over his eyes before kicking the covers off so he could cool down.

_I'm tired of the nightmares_. He could still taste the smoke, could feel it restrict his lungs, gather up in his throat...

He left his bed and headed for the bathroom so he could wash the sweat from his face and cool off a bit faster. A glance in the mirror showed him just how exhausted he looked--and felt--as water droplets made paths down his face before he wiped them away. Gripping the porcelain of the sink, he willed his breathing to calm, willed his muscles to relax, and willed his mind to blank out.

_What would Father say if he saw me like this?_ He grabbed a hand towel from the rack by the sink and dried his face off. _No son worthy of his legacy would be waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares induced by some traumatic event._ Another glance in the mirror, his eyes startlingly blue in contrast to the hand towel.

_Then again, I never was certain I was worthy of following in his footsteps to start with. The expectations he had of me would not meet the reality, that is for certain._

Marth sighed and left the bathroom. There was little point in going back to sleep for only another hour or so, so he left the room he shared with Roy and headed down the stairs to the kitchen, where breakfast was already being cooked by Peach. Peach looked like she hadn't been up for all that long herself, as she expertly diced up some onion to toss into the skillet with the bacon, peppers, and eggs.

"Good morning."

Peach looked up from her cooking and smiled. "Good morning, Marth. I hope you slept well."

"Like an infant," Marth lied, as he took a seat at the table. "What's on the breakfast menu today?"

Peach plated up the scrambled omelete just as toast popped up from the toaster.

"Scrambled eggs with toast and your choice of butter or jam--or both, if you want. I'll have some orange juice out in a second, unless you'd prefer coffee or tea?"

"Coffee would be lovely." He needed something to keep him from falling asleep again.

Peach set the coffeemaker up after she placed breakfast in front of Marth. "Would you like milk or sugar or cream?"

Marth paused his jam spreading to ponder this. He wasn't really a huge coffee drinker--he preferred tea, really. But tea wouldn't wake him up like he needed to.

"Au lait with sugar," Marth said, before resuming the smothering-toast-in-jam method of spreading.

"You have another half day today. Do you want me to have lunch prepared for when you get home? I can always leave it in the fridge for you."

Marth bit into his toast. It had just the perfect crunch to it. Peach knew what she was doing, it was hard to not make toast too hard or too soft.

"You can leave me something in the fridge," Marth said. "If it's not too much trouble, that is," he added.

Peach waved dismissively. "Oh please. I'm here to make sure everyone is taken care of! They don't call me the 'Dorm Mother' for nothing, you know."

In some weird way, Marth felt nostalgic. His mother had never set foot in a kitchen all her life except to eat dinner--they had always had a chef cook and prepare meals. But his sister Elice... She had learned through Youtube how to cook, and would often sneak into the kitchen late at night to prepare different meals, with him as the (very hungry) guinea pig.

_Maybe I'll give her a call later today, see how she and Jagen are doing._

* * *

The weather had decided that, instead of the light rain showers the meteorologist had promised on the news last night, it would downpour. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, for there was adequate drainage to the sewers on the roads and pavements. However, due to the trees losing their leaves, and no one cleaning the drainage ditches of said leaves, the water had nowhere to go, and decided to pool at the sides of roads, take over a few pavements, and maybe even knock on a few doors and let itself into basements.

"Well this is a terrible time to have to walk to school," Link said, as he held a hand out from under the umbrella he was seeking shelter under. "The Academy should provide a shuttle service or something for inclement weather."

"Just avoid the puddles," Roy said, dressed in 'throwaway' clothes, his uniform tucked away in his backpack in the hopes it would stay dry.

"Kinda hard when the roads have turned into Lake Hylia."

"Wear rain boots and a poncho," Marth said, sporting both. "Have your uniform in something waterproof so it doesn't get wet, and then change at school."

"You _would_ own a rain poncho," Link muttered, as he headed down the front porch steps, and was subsequently splashed by a car going way too fast for the local speed limit.

The entire walk to school, Link used his umbrella not as a shield against the rain, but as a shield against the water from the cars driving by. He still got wet, of course, but Link reasoned he was getting less wet from the "sky water", and more wet from the "car water". The trio trudged along the flooded out Avenue, where ducks were enjoying an impromptu swim amongst the leaves and empty plastic bottles. The rain showed no signs of stopping, and by the time they reached Melee Academy, even with umbrellas and rain ponchos, they could barely see their hand in front of their face, it was raining so hard.

"I feel like I just took a dip in Zora's Domain," Link said, his teeth chattering, as they entered the warm and much dryer academic building. "I'm soaked."

"Had you listened to us, you would've had something to change into. Alas..." Marth clicked his tongue. "You have naught but the clothes on your back that are currently clinging to you like a second skin."

Link headed to the bathroom, his socks making squelching noises with every step he took as they squeezed out and reabsorbed the water in his shoes.

"He's gonna have a hell of a date with the hand dryer," Roy said, as he shrugged his backpack off in front of his locker. "Be there for hours, probably. He could've at least brought dry socks. Wet socks are the _worst_." He pulled off his sopping wet hoodie, which sounded like a wet paper towel hitting the floor when he dropped it, before removing his sweatpants. Marth's face burned as he averted his gaze.

"R-Roy, have you no shame? We're in the _hallway_ \--"

"Oh relax, Marth." Roy leaned against the locker so he could pull his rain boots off. "I have shorts on under them."

"S-Still!"

Roy shoved his wet clothes into a plastic bag and retrieved his mostly dry uniform from his backpack.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before."

Marth's face was on fire now. "I beg your _pardon_?"

Roy grinned. "I didn't know you got flustered so easy."

"Flustered?" Marth scoffed, though he could tell his face was probably at least the same shade of red as Roy's hair. "W-Who's flustered? Not me. If anything _you_ should be the flustered one, for you're stripping in the middle of the--"

"What's this about Marth seeing you naked?" It was Link, who was slightly less wet, but not by much. In his hands, he carried his shoes and socks.

"I have never seen _anyone_ naked!" That came out a little louder than Marth had intended, but right now he didn't care, he had his reputation to protect, such as it was.

"Including yourself?" Link asked.

"I don't make it a habit of looking at myself without clothes on."

Roy slipped his uniform pants on before shoving his feet into his dress code compliant shoes.

"Well maybe you should," Link said. "Everyone should be in tune with themselves."

"I bet he looks good naked," Roy said with a wink.

"Roy Pherae, if you do not cease and desist _right now_ \--" 

Link looked from Roy's huge grin to Marth's tomato for a face and back.

"Sheesh, and I thought _I_ was the terrible friend. I think if you don't stop, he's gonna combust."

Roy buttoned up his dress shirt before pulling on his blazer.

"It was meant as a compliment, Marth," Roy explained, as he made sure he hadn't mismatched his buttons again.

"How is saying I might look good naked a compliment?!"

"It means he likes what he sees and wants to see more," Link said, which caused Roy to stammer and flush.

"W-What? N-No! It...It just kind of slipped out, that's all. No harm was meant by it." He laughed nervously, but Link's stare told him _I'm not buying it_.

Marth and Roy gazed awkwardly at anything that wasn't the other. Link sighed and shook his head.

"What am I gonna do with the two of you if _I'm_ the responsible friend in this sitch?"

"You're the one who started the naked thing," Marth accused, his eyes narrowed in Link's direction.

"So then I am absolutely _not_ the responsible friend in the group?"

"Absolutely not," Marth said, as Roy shoved his plastic bag full of soggy clothing into the locker. "This whole mess was your fault. If anything, that is the only thing you're able to claim responsibility for."

Link grinned. "I'm okay with this."

"If anyone is going to be the adult here, it's likely going to be me." Marth said this with such confidence that Link snorted.

"Whatever you say, Marth."

* * *

Mewtwo examined the sheet of paper floating inches from his face, eyes narrowed, three fingered hand stroking what Marth assumed was his chin as the thirteen members of his first period Japanese class sat quietly. Mewtwo made a sound of deep contemplation before the paper fell to the ground.

"There will be an assembly during this and the next period for first and second years," Mewtwo said at last. It still unnerved Marth to see Mewtwo's mouth remain closed as his voice reverberated in everyone's heads. "That doesn't mean we won't be doing work."

Aras groaned.

"I will do as much instruction as I can in fifteen minutes, which will be homework collection for those of you who bothered."

As everyone retrieved their homework from their backpacks, Mewtwo decided to do the attendance sheet. It was, after all, his teacherly duty, not that he cared overly much if everyone was present. Aras opened her backpack only for what looked like rain water to spill out from it and cover her skirt and the floor. Her desk mate, Gary Stu, was not amused in the least by the sudden development that was his wet socks and shoes.

"Mewtwo-sensei," Alex said, raising his hand, "I think Aras sprung a leak."

"So go find some paper towels or a mop or something and clean it up," Mewtwo said. "What do I look like, the janitorial staff?"

Alex trudged over to the box of tissues Mewtwo kept on his desk and grabbed a fistful of them, all the while Mewtwo waved his hand and collected the homework assignments without so much as blinking. Aras sat on her seat, completely paralysed.

"I think my underwear is wet," she said. "I daikirai this."

"There's a joke I could make," Nicholas said, as he watched Alex try to mop up the water with something slightly thicker than 1-ply toilet paper, "but I won't."

"Smart," Mewtwo said, his eyes scanning each assignment.

"There isn't anyone remotely attractive in this class to get that kind of reaction, Nick," Stephanie said, without looking up for a second from her 3DS.

"I wouldn't say that's exactly true," Kweenetra said, eying Stephanie. "It depends on what you're into."

Mewtwo sighed. "Can we not discuss this in my classroom?"

"Mewtwo-sensei, can I go to my locker and retrieve extra clothes to change into?"

Mewtwo gave her a look.

"Why do you even have extra clothes?" Alex asked.

"Because I'm a _girl_ , you baka!"

"You never know when iced tea will gush down your thighs," Nestea said, nodding sagely.

"That is euphemism for something disgusting, isn't it," Marth muttered, just as Mewtwo said, "Can we _not discuss this in my classroom_ for the love of Arceus?"

"I will never drink iced tea again," Stephen muttered.

Before Nestea could explain how that was even possible, static came through the intercom speaker. One violent coughing fit later, the school's announcement administrator (which was his job title on paper, he carried it around to show people who didn't believe him) came booming over the loudspeaker, "Will all first and second years _please_ come to the auditorium in an orderly fashion for your annual morning assembly?"

Mewtwo couldn't even properly dismiss his class before everyone was gone. It was just Mewtwo, Alex (who was still trying to clean the floor with knockoff Kleenex aptly named CLEANUX), and Aras (who refused to move with her entire bottom half sopping from the lake that was contained in her bag).

"No one respects their teachers these days," Mewtwo muttered, as he floated over to his desk chair, sitting on it sideways so he could sit on it without his tail interfering. "Damn Millennials."

"Um, Sensei, we're actually the Centennials, also known as Gen Z--"

"I don't care. It's the Millennials who birthed you, therefore, it is their fault."

Alex found himself unable to combat that.

* * *

Marth sat as close to the doors as he possibly could; neither Roy nor Link had a problem with this, and happily sat with him. Most of the others tried to sit as close to the front as possible, with some even picking fights over it. It was just an assembly with the school's head as the main speaker, and he likely never had anything exciting to say anyway. It didn't take all that long for the auditorium to fill, both the main space on the third floor and the balcony one entered from the fourth. Some kid from the balcony decided it was a good idea to toss popcorn to those seated below, with one student catching some in his mouth.

_You don't know where that's been_ , Marth thought with a grimace. _You don't know what he's done to it._

"Are assemblies always like this?" Roy asked.

"More or less," Link said. "I know last year one guy created a flamethrower with a bunsen burner he took from a chemistry classroom."

"What happened to him?"

Link shrugged. "Probably got expelled. Mr Hand got so mad, he made an announcement over the intercom the next day about how the student who created the pyrotechnic display wasn't fit for Melee Academy, as it caused a great disturbance unbefitting of the institution..."

A man appeared on stage dressed all in black, his face obscured by a black balaclava. In the dim lighting he would've been almost invisible, and with the lights off likely would've been completely blended into the background, had it not been for the bright white glove he wore on his right hand. The amount of bleach and starch likely used on those gloves to make them almost unnaturally white made Marth's hands itch.

"He was a magician at one point," Link whispered. "Did one of those TV shows revealing magician secrets or something, or at least that's what he told us. Someone said that it's more likely he ended up being a witness to some horrible crime and is now under witness protection, and dresses like this to avoid anyone possibly finding out his real identity."

"But why the glove?" Marth asked.

"Dunno," Link answered. "He said it's the glove that touched the hand of God or something. Makes him feel powerful." Link shrugged again. "He's kind of a weird guy, but not as weird as his twin brother."

A figure wearing an outfit identical to Mr Hand's, save for a white glove appearing on his left hand, appeared to his left.

"He was in a heavy metal band," Link continued. "Went by the stage name 'Crazy Hand', because he did absolutely mad stage stunts that would make Ozzy Osbourne look like a proper British gentleman. Now he's here so that Mr Hand can keep him in check."

Crazy Hand growled at an unsuspecting student. The din of the auditorium faded to nothingness.

"Good morning, students!" Mr Hand sounded so cheerful it was most definitely fake.

The assembled underclassmen all gave half-hearted greetings. Marth folded his arms over his chest and settled in for a long, drawn out assembly that would more than likely bore half the school's population to slumber, like all of those Archanean court meetings his father would drag him to. Roy was already trying to stifle a yawn.

"Good good morning!" Crazy Hand yelled.

"Yes," Mr Hand said, sounding slightly less enthusiastic now. "Yes, it is morning, and a good one at that, because it's a brand new school year! For those who are returning, welcome back!"

"Welcome welcome!" Crazy said.

"And for those who are completely new, welcome to the Melee Academy, where we cultivate the utmost potential and excellence in our students." Mr Hand sounded prim and proper and even _regal_. Crazy Hand stood ramrod straight, hand to his heart.

"Or figure out which ones will not be able to succeed," Crazy added, voice deep and sinister.

"I am your dean, the head of this fantastic institution, Mr Hand." The way he said 'mister' was more like 'master'.

"And I am the dean-to-the-second-power--" The microphone cut out for Crazy Hand before coming back in again with a staticy hiss. "--but I would absolutely love it if you called me 'Crazy Hand'!" He bowed.

"What the hell even is this," Roy whispered.

"He's always like this," Link said. "He's big into theatrics. They both are, but Crazy Hand is...a lot more theatrical, whereas Mr Hand is more dramatic."

"These are the ones in charge of the school." Marth wasn't asking a question. If anything, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of the fact that these two ex-metalheads were running a high class boarding school.

"Crazy Hand's fun," Stephanie chimed in from in front of them. "Overkills it sometimes, but still fun."

Mr Hand cleared his throat. "I do have some announcements to make, which is why I called an assembly to order. Most of it is just reiterating policy for those who are returning, and making sure the newcomers know what we do and don't want when it comes to our students and their behaviour." Mr Hand produced from his suit jacket pocket a small pile of index cards. "There are a few other announcements as well, but all in due time!"

Marth sighed. Link was already half asleep.

"No wonder Lord Hector always fell asleep in League meetings," Roy muttered. "Father always said Lord Erik of Laus was showoff-y like this whenever he opened with the minutes from the last meeting."

"Perhaps you need a better minutes keeper," Marth said.

As Mr Hand droned on about the dress code and how students could use the summer uniform if they so chose to, Link ended up faceplanting the chair in front of him, not caring who saw. How could he when he was asleep? Marth shook his head as Roy took notes.

"My father does this for Lord Hector," Roy explained, when he saw Marth look his way. "So I will do this for Link, so he doesn't miss anything."

"I don't think he minds missing anything, to be quite honest."

"We will be having a change in faculty this year..." Mr Hand tried to sound sad, maybe even disappointed. "Our dear head of discipline, Mr Coxburn, after dedicating forty years of his life to disciplining students of all ages at over twenty different secondary schools all over Nintendia, is finally retiring to Delfino Isle to live out his golden years stretched out on lovely beaches, toes in the sand..."

A balding, hunched over, creaking looking fellow emerged from stage left, waving to the zero people who were rooting for him, before taking the microphone from Mr Hand. Crazy Hand clapped a little too loud.

"Thank you, thank you, for that moving introduction, Mr Hand." Mr Coxburn chuckled a little. "You know, I remember when this institution was just named The Academy, and started out with just twelve incredibly eager and talented students, many of whom came back as teachers and staff to the very building that laid down their foundations..."

"I'm going to go mad," Marth said. "Jagen will ask what broke me, and I will have to tell him that a man with the worst sounding surname in the English language bored me to such an extent, that my brain has ceased all function."

"That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?" Roy winced when Mr Coxburn's microphone gave feedback that rivaled a Voltorb's Screech attack in terms of eardrum destruction.

"Perhaps."

"Just remember that even if the world goes mad, that you'll continue to fight and believe in yourself," Roy said.

"My world's already mad, and I'm done fighting."

It started as a soft noise coming from the balcony, but soon erupted into something much more thunderous, a sound that signaled a storm was brewing above their heads, followed by someone gasping and shouting, "Oh my god, Eggie, are you okay?!" and, "Holy shit, Eggie just blacked out!" This of course started a bit of a commotion on the balcony, which Mr Coxburn ignored in favour of continuing his monologue about how only the most righteous and future oriented students succeed at Melee Academy, but Mr Hand mostly certainly glared with immense disapproval as two girls fanned the face of another sunk low in her theatre-style seat. Students in the area near Eggie Marsalla covered their faces with their hands, ties, blazer sleeves, or in one case another person's arm.

It was so loud, Link startled awake and hit his nose against the seat he was using as a makeshift pillow.

"What was that?"

"I...don't know," Roy said, his voice trailing off as he tried to peer up into the balcony above. "I guess a girl passed out or something?"

"--and that is why I am so sad to leave you wonderful students, who I have helped mould into upstanding citizens of Nintendia," Mr Coxburn continued.

"Yes, that was lovely," Mr Hand interrupted, grabbing the microphone before Mr Coxburn could speak any further. "We are surely sad to see you go, but we must move on to the future." Mr Hand made a motion and Crazy escorted the retired disciplinarian off the stage.

"Our new head of discipline is none other than a former alumnus: Mr Ganondorf Dragmire!"

Marth looked at Link in alarm when the Hylian growled. Roy moved away in surprise.

"Uh, Link? Are you...are you okay?" the redhead asked.

"Who the hell let him in?" Link's voice was low, dangerously so.

"Mr Hand, obviously," Marth said. "Are you...are you alright, Link?"

There was a murmur throughout the crowd as tension rose in the air. Or perhaps that was something left over from Eggie Marsalla's surprise gastrointestinal emission. 

"Objection!" Link stood now, eyes narrowed, hands balled into fists at his sides. "I object to this faculty appointment!"

"Link, what are you doing?!" Roy tugged on Link's arm to try and get him to sit down.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" Marth said, more harshly than he intended.

"Ganondorf Dragmire is a murderer," Link continued. "He tried to assassinate the current monarch of Hyrule, he killed my parents--"

Ganondorf laughed. "Sit down, boy. You're embarrassing yourself."

"Those convictions were overturned due to a lack of evidence," Mr Hand said. "Rest assured, we run all sorts of background checks! You are all perfectly safe!"

"I watched him kill her," Link continued. "I know what I saw."

"Sit down, Mr Mekkai," Mr Hand said, his voice tinged with a threat he didn't need to voice.

Something on the back of Ganondorf's hand flashed, and the towering man hid his hands behind his back. Link made no move to hide the glowing triangle on the back of his.

* * *

"Link sure is the talk of the halls," Roy remarked, as he met Marth at 217N, where their Honours English class took place.

"It takes the pressure off of me," Marth said, "so I don't mind someone else being the centre of gossip."

"Doesn't it make you wonder, though?"

Marth pulled the door open. "No. I don't wonder about other people's lives when I have my own to worry over."

"So you're not curious at all then?" Roy asked, as he followed Marth inside the classroom.

"No." Marth made his way to his seat towards the back of the room, right next to the window, which gave a lovely view of the breezeway below. "If Link wants to tell everyone his life story, he's more than welcome to do so. Until then, don't--"

"Encourage the spread of gossip, yes, Marth, I know." Roy sat next to him. "Is it really a bad thing that I'm interested, though? He tossed some pretty heavy accusations at Mr Dragmire, after all..."

Marth dug through his backpack for his notebook and pen.

"I don't think it's a terrible thing to be interested in the life of someone you call a friend, no. Just keep in mind that all their life might offer is a lot of pain and turmoil."

Roy's brow furrowed as he rested his cheek on his palm.

"Is that why you won't tell me anything about yourself? You have a sister, and a guardian, but that's all I know. And that your father--"

"Is deceased, yes," Marth said, his bitterness coming to the surface. "And we're going to leave it at that, son of Marquess Pherae."

Mr Mario came into the classroom then, a stack of papers in his arms.

"I figured in lieu of making you carry around these really heavy books," he said, in his heavy Italian accent, "I would just make photocopies of the things I want you to read, since we won't really be using the textbooks that much anyway."

"You're the best," L'Andrea said, giving Mr Mario a thumbs up. He flushed, which was mostly hidden underneath his thick mustache.

"So today, we will be reading an old story that details the exploits of one man who beat the odds and slayed an evil dragon..."

"The Hero's Way," Marth whispered, at the same time Mr Mario announced it.

"It is about the journey of Anri, Altea's first king, who had to go through many difficult trials in order to defeat the Earth Dragon known as Medeus," Mario explained, as he passed out rather thick packets stapled with an industrial stapler, or perhaps even a staple gun. 

Marth tried to ignore the stares. He made a point to find something interesting to look at through the window instead.

"Isn't Altea that kingdom that was burned to the ground a few months back?" Gary Stu asked, without raising his hand, because he felt he was too good to do so. "And whose prince is supposedly missing, possibly even dead?"

"Their prince isn't dead," Marth said. "He ran away with his tail between his legs, but he isn't dead."

Gary Stu smirked. "And you know that on what authority, exactly?"

"He's Altean nobility," Roy said. "Stop trying to start a fight, Gary Stu."

"I bet his prince is dead," Gary Stu continued. "I bet King Jiol grabbed him and chopped off his head--"

"Mama-mia!" Mario exclaimed, just as Marth cursed at Gary Stu with the foulest words he knew in his mother tongue. "Mr Stu, to Mr Dragmire's office, please!"

Gary Stu looked shocked. "I get sent to the office, but Marth doesn't?"

"You started it," L'Andrea said. "You started it in the hopes of getting Marth going, you have no one to blame but yourself." Others chimed in in agreement.

"Office! Now!"

Gary Stu picked up his books and stormed out of the classroom.

Mario waited a minute or two before turning back to his textbook. "Where was I?"

"You were telling us about the journey Anri took," Dean said.

"Right! So anyway..."

Without looking directly at Roy, Marth murmured a, "Thank you," before turning his attentions to the packet on his desk.

"One day he's gonna say the wrong thing to the wrong person and get his ass kicked," Roy whispered. "Or at least screamed at."

"One can only hope," Marth said. He had the barest hint of a smile on his face.

* * *

Link was waiting for Marth and Roy after eighth period concluded in his now usual spot at their locker. Marth couldn't even tell Link had had an outburst a few hours ago at the assembly, the blond was acting like nothing had happened at all, in fact. He grinned as they made their approach.

"So we're gonna have a mandatory admin station tomorrow morning," Link said, his voice incredibly cheerful.

"Let me guess," Roy said, as he pretended to be staring off into the future, "it's because of what you did at the assembly today."

"Well that and about what happened to Eggie Marsalla." Link stepped aside as Roy unlocked the locker.

"Which was?"

Link chuckled a little as he leaned against the adjacent locker. "So Eggie brought a sandwich with her right? Bologna and mustard with swiss cheese and pickles. It was in a ziplock that was kept in a fanny pack, yeah?"

Roy dumped all of his books on the bottom shelf. "Yeah."

"Well she nearly missed the assembly, and came in late. Flopped down onto her seat. Guess the ziplock had air in it or something, because the damn thing exploded. But that's not all!"

Roy retrieved his still damp clothes. "It gets worse?" He ducked his head a little so Marth could reach over him.

"It scared her so much that she ended up farting. At least this is the story that Eggie's friends are telling, so who the heck knows. But that thunderous noise we heard was her fart. And it shook her with such force that she ended up passing out."

"I don't think that's plausible," Marth said.

"I don't think it's the truth either," Link agreed. "This isn't the first time it's happened, and her brother Edgar has the same problem, guy can apparently fart on command, and did a similar thing at his fancy prep school."

"Makes sense that her friends are covering for her though," Roy said, shutting and locking his locker. "That's what friends do."

"I mean yeah... I'd save you guys from something potentially high school life ruining, that's for sure," Link said. "I'd expect you two to do the same thing for me."

The trio headed for the exit that was only a short walk away.

"I saw Gary Stu fuming in Ganondorf's office," Link said. "Kept yelling about injustices and whatever."

"He tried to start crap with Marth," Roy said, as they wove through the quickly thinning crowd to get to the main street. "We're reading The Hero's Way or whatever in English class, which is about some Altean hero, and Gary Stu took that as an opportunity to try and attack Marth since he's Altean nobility."

Link sighed. "What does that guy have against Marth, anyway?"

"I believe he just has a chip on his shoulder in general," Marth said.

"Did he insult the guy the story's about or something?"

Roy fell silent.

"He said that the Altean prince is dead," Marth said, his voice surprisingly steady to his ears.

"All the gossip and internet articles refer to you as the quote-unquote _prince_ ," Link said. "And you are very obviously Not Dead. Unless, of course, you're a well behaved zombie, which means that Resident Evil was completely full of shit and not based on a true story like it proclaims--"

"I'm merely nobility within Altea, as I've said before," Marth interrupted. "They're misinformed about my social status." _Except they're not_ , Marth thought. _But neither was I. The Altean prince_ **_is_ ** _a coward, and I am nothing more than a noble without a home to speak of. A prince of nothing but burned ruins and ruined lives._

"Damn clickbait articles," Link muttered.

"That's the nature of them," Roy said. "To be intentionally misleading in the hopes people view them."

As Roy and Link discussed how clickbait culture had evolved since the decade rolled over, Marth flipped through the literature he and Roy had been assigned, which was a legend he was all too intimately familiar with. Both Jagen and his father had drilled it into his head from a young age, because it was important for Anri's great-grand-nephew to know the origins of the kingdom and the family and so forth. His fingers traced the letters that formed the words printed on the page, but felt no comfort from them. He had never read an English translation of the story before, and some phrasings sounded stilted and not as poetic as they did in Altean. This copy also didn't have the beautiful illustrations that often adorned the more ornate editions of the book, which was something Marth missed terribly. He often found solace in tracing the lithographs as Elice would read the story to him and Merric during a time before Marth knew what the words even meant.

This was the man whose legacy had been passed down from father to son over five generations. This was the man who had placed expectations upon Marth that he knew he couldn't live up to at all. Altea was a mess, the kingdom taken from his father by his own cousin, the king of Gra, who was hellbent at wiping out the rest of the family residing in Altea and Ylisse so he could rule.

So long as Prince Marth Lowell of Altea and Princess Emmeryn Sheppard of Ylisse were alive, Jiol couldn't accomplish his "rule over everything" task without a lot of opposition, fighting, and bloodshed. Altea's castle may have fallen, but the people didn't fall with it. Not yet.

Upon arrival back at the Manse, Marth fell away from Roy and Link, who were busy checking out the latest Buzzfeed quizzes, to make contact with his sister. She picked up after three rings.

"Marth." Her voice was soft and filled with such warmth that Marth sighed and genuinely smiled.

"Sister, it is good to hear your voice," he said, before switching over to Altean. "Have you heard anything from home?"

There was a pause, a hesitation, that made Marth's heart leap against his ribs.

"I heard from Chrom," she said, her words slow as she carefully chose them. "He said they may have found Emmeryn, but they aren't sure. They're trying to find anyone in the area who has any information."

"Is she..." Marth's throat constricted. "Is Cousin Emmeryn...?"

"I don't know. Chrom didn't ask them for any elaboration, he said he didn't want any speculation, but facts. They neglected to tell him anything until they are one hundred percent positive."

Marth found himself on the staircase leading to the residential area. He sat down, head in his palm.

"Please give Cousin Chrom and Lissa my regards in this trying time," he said. "It isn't much, but that is all I can offer them at this time."

"He told me to send his on to you," she said. "I'll tell you any information I have as soon as I hear it. The situation in Altea is dire, Marth. Those who rise up in your name are being slaughtered by Jiol and his army."

Marth gripped his fringe now and tugged.

"That is unforgivable," he said through grit teeth. "If it will save lives, please inform Jiol and his ilk that I am dead."

"Don't say such things!"

"It would solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it?" His voice rose as he stood from the stairs. "If I had died along with Mother and Father, more innocents wouldn't have to die--"

"The people would have risen up regardless to avenge you," Elice reasoned. "Marth, please... You have every right to be angry, but do not wish for your own death when you are all that I have left..."

Marth sighed before swallowing down his own bitterness. "Forgive me and my foolishness, Sister."

"You are no fool," she replied. "Please, take care, Marth. I worry for you."

Marth felt even worse after he ended the phone call, his thoughts unsettled.

_Emm... Please be safe._


	4. September 5th, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the weekend, and the boys can finally relax. Marth and Roy decide to pursue their studies while Link gets schooled in video games by his younger brother and his friends. Marth's wants to share his secrets with someone and yet not share them with someone at the same time. Will a letter to home help with his feelings, or will that just make things worse for him? What does one even include in a letter to home anyway? Only good things to keep an overprotective sister at ease at the expense of his own comfort? Or express himself freely with the good AND the bad?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, the first weekend here at Melee Academy... What will our boys be up to, I wonder? I started this chapter literally right after finishing chapter three...which was almost two months ago. And then I realised my outline for this chapter was incomplete, or that part of it went missing, I have no idea which, so I had a bit of a block there until listening to some songs I listened to whilst writing the ORIGINAL version of this fic (Melee Academy: Year Two), which seemed to be the spark of inspiration I needed.
> 
> Thanks for reading, feedback of course is welcome as always! I love to read your comments.

_September 5th, 2014_

It was the weekend, and for once, Marth slept in. Exhausted from spending all of last night composing an email to Elice and Chrom about what had been going on with him lately, only to delete it an hour later and write out a typo laden text document about how he _really_ felt about life and the injustices against his family and home and how Jiol could burn in hell for what he had done--Marth had to admit, it felt _good_ to lay everything out.

He ended up deleting that, too, because despite everything that had happened, Jiol was still _family_ , and Marth was supposed to handle all of this with grace and dignity he was pretty sure he didn't possess, calling men to arms to fight for Altea and bring this man to justice. Marth didn't want to bring this man to justice. He wanted him dead. Put to the sword. Dragged through the streets on the back of a carriage and made an example of like he did to his father, which he saw via a Facebook Live post by Jiol's second in command. He snapped his laptop closed and decided it was time to retire for the evening; it was well after midnight by now.

As the morning sun burned bright in the sky, filtering through the curtains, Marth sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the heel of his palm, just as Roy emerged from the bathroom wearing his pajamas, a towel around his shoulders, his hair damp. The steam billowing out from behind him indicated to Marth that Roy had just finished showering, and Marth shut the thought that tried to follow down almost immediately. He most certainly did _not_ want to imagine Roy naked.

Or, at least, he thought he didn't. Was sure he didn't. And yet Marth couldn't look away, couldn't help but trace the droplets of water as they made their way down from Roy's hair and down his jawline with his eyes.

"Mornin'," Roy mumbled, as he headed for his computer, seemingly oblivious to Marth's stare.

"Good morning," Marth answered, remembering himself finally, as he reached for the robe draped across the foot of his bed.

"Have any neat dreams to share?" Roy leaned back in his chair as his laptop booted up. "I dreamed I was the lord of cheese, and there were Krabby Patties, and Father found out he was distantly related to King Neptune... It was quite odd."

_That's what you get from watching a 24/7 livestream of Spongebob on Youtube while you sleep._

"I don't usually recall my dreams," Marth said. "The ones I do are ones I'd rather I didn't." 

Roy accessed his email on his computer while scrolling through Facebook on his phone.

"I was thinking of getting some breakfast from the kitchen before I start that current events project for Mr Mario."

Marth pulled his robe on before completely exiting the warmth of his bed.

"I wasn't aware that our English teacher also taught History." He headed for the small bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

"Oh, he doesn't," Roy said, as he thumbed through his list of assignments. "It's his younger brother, Luigi, who teaches it. Naturally they have the same surname, so... Anyway, he gave us a list of topics that are 'current', and we have to do some article finding and then write a report on it. At least one page, double spaced, one inch margins all round... You know. Standard MLA stuff."

When Marth emerged from the bathroom, he was greeted by a strange look.

"You're in my History class, so why don't you know this stuff?"

Marth blinked. The past few days felt like a blur, all combining into one another.

"I must admit, my mind has been a bit preoccupied as of late."

Roy's chair creaked as he shifted on it.

"Well, if it helps to unload it a little bit, I'm a great listener."

Marth went over to his dresser, where he pulled out a plain blue t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

"I don't feel it's necessary to 'unload' anything." He heard Roy sigh.

"Come off it, Marth. There is obviously something bothering you, you're so tense you're a bow string pulled so taut that you're about to snap, or the wood is about to break, whichever happens first. Someone can get hurt from too much tension."

"You sound like Jagen," Marth said, as he pulled on his shirt.

"Maybe he has a point," Roy said. "Your country was invaded and your family slaughtered." His words contained a heaviness Marth winced at. "Who the hell is 'fine' after that?"

"No one is," Marth admitted. "But I have no choice but to be. My duty dictates that my people, my kingdom, they all come before my own wellbeing."

Marth spent an awfully long time folding up his sleepwear. His secret was out.

_I should feel anxious, and yet at this moment I can't find it in me to care. I'm too tired to care at this point._

"So you _are_ a bonafide actual _royal_."

Marth chuckled. "At one point, maybe. But now I am not a prince of anything, least of all Altea." He placed his pajamas at the foot of his bed in a neat little square, his robe to the right of it. Marth pulled on his boots and pocketed his phone.

"I've seen what happens to royals who get inundated by tragedy," Roy said quietly. "The king of Bern, Desmond, tried to kill his son, Prince Zephiel. Prince Zephiel retaliated, killing him, and in the process he ended up losing himself. Never recovered. Tried to start a war, but the Marquess Ostia put a stop to that. His sister runs the country in his stead because they deemed him unfit to rule."

Marth picked idly at his bedspread. "I must say, I didn't expect to have a discussion of this magnitude before I've had my morning tea and toast."

Roy had such a severe look on his face, ill-suited for how boyish he appeared.

"You can confide in me, Marth. I don't want you to end up like Zephiel did."

Marth shrugged. "Perhaps it would be best if I ended up 'unfit' to rule Altea. They could have someone much more suitable at her helm."

Roy gave him a look that said, _I don't believe you._

* * *

Breakfast ended up being a quiet affair as Marth debated whether he should take Roy's advice and open up a little, loosen the iron grip he had on his own thoughts and feelings. But this would mean going against Jagen's advice, and Marth had never gone against his guardian in all his fifteen years, especially since everything he did, he did for Marth--but was it for _Marth_ or was it for the Prince of Altea? Marth took a sip of tea. It was the first time he'd ever had a thought like that. If he was completely honest, he was afraid that if he opened up to Roy, that everything would come pouring out and scare Roy away entirely, and Marth didn't want that to happen either.

Halfway through the serenity that was breakfast-but-almost-really-lunch, there was a loud noise from the direction of the recreation room, followed by a torrent of cursing and an, "Anaka, I'm going to _throttle_ you!" Peach looked up from her newspaper and sighed as she shook her head.

"What was that?" Roy asked through a mouthful of eggs, something his best friend's mother would scold him for.

"It sounded like Link," Marth said.

"They've been playing video games since seven this morning," Peach remarked, as she turned a page. "Link got a new racing game, some Deep Space Racer Extravaganza or something, and I guess he's not good at losing." She giggled. "His younger brother and friends are pretty good at it, for something they haven't played before."

Marth and Roy deposited their dishes in the sink and thanked Peach for breakfast before heading over to the rec room. There, seated on the couch, was Link and what appeared to be a younger version of himself, as well as a boy with a backwards red baseball cap, and a boy wearing a jacket that looked too warm for outside, let alone inside. Their eyes were glued to the action on the big screen TV mounted on the wall, and Link nearly tossed the Wiimote at it when his car rammed into a wall and exploded.

"What's going on in here?" Roy asked, his tone conversational as he approached the couch.

"Link's getting his ass kicked," said the younger Link. "It's about time I beat him at something."

"Your ass is mine when this is over," Link growled, as the game announcer called the race's end.

"Ha! I won again!"

"I was a solid second," said the boy with the baseball cap and striped shirt.

"I did better than Link did, so I'm okay with that," said the parka wearing boy.

"I think anyone can do better than Link," the mini Link replied with a smirk. "I bet a brick can do better."

"So..." Roy looked at the quartet. "Who...are these people?"

Link dropped the Wiimote on the couch and sighed.

"You mean you haven't told your friends about me at all?" Young Link crossed his arms. "I'm hurt, Link. _Hurt_."

"Cry me a river," Link retorted, as he stood from the couch to join his friends. "The blond with a smart mouth is my younger brother, Anaka."

"Everyone calls me 'Little Link' though, because I'm apparently my brother's twin-born-three-years-later."

"I didn't know you had siblings," Marth said.

"I'm...pretty sure I mentioned it at some point, but yeah, I have three younger siblings and only _one_ of them is my least favourite." Link shot daggers at Anaka.

"Oh _please_."

"This is Ness," Link said, gesturing to the kid in the striped shirt, "and this is Popo, who has such low blood pressure that he's constantly cold. Or something. They're my kid brother's kid friends or whatever you wanna call 'em."

"Champions of Deep Space Sixing," Young Link said. 

Marth didn't understand why Link found that phrase scandalous, but chalked it up to Link not being over losing to his younger brother. Marth turned to Roy, who just shrugged.

"I need to get away from you," Link said. "Maybe...maybe I'll do my homework. You guys wanna have a study sesh or something?"

"Sure," Marth said, at the same time Roy said, "I guess."

* * *

"This Japanese assignment from Mewtwo sucks." Link's voice echoed in the empty library located on The Manse's top floor. "Why does he want to know what we did over the weekend?"

"He probably doesn't care," Roy said. "It's language practise."

"So I gotta write five sentences on what I did today and tomorrow? Using 'new vocabulary' that I already knew but never used because I heard it in an anime I watched Friday night?"

"At least you've done something worthwhile," Marth said. "So far I have that I slept in, ate breakfast, and did my Japanese homework. Roy's done research, played Bejeweled, wrote a blog post..."

"It was only three sentences," Roy admitted. "I don't think that really counts as much of a post."

Link shut his notebook. "I'm just gonna make shit up and turn it in Monday, he probably doesn't even _read_ any of it anyway." His chair scraped against the flooring as he stood up. "I'm gonna get some lunch, you two...?"

Roy shook his head. "We had a late breakfast."

"I've got a bunch of assignments still to go," Marth said. "Go on without me."

Link shrugged. "Suit yourselves. It's Penne Vodka Saturday, so don't expect much left over." He left his school books on the table and walked out of the library, leaving Marth and Roy alone at the table.

"Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds The Hero's Way really boring," Roy said, as he flipped open his English notebook.

"It's a lot dryer in English than I had expected," Marth said. "The original is much more poetic and appealing and more meaningful than this. Compare homemade bread to something stale you bought from a store and is too hard to even be used as croutons."

"So...how does Mr Mario want us to analyse something that's going to put everyone else to sleep?"

Marth pulled out his own copy, which was highlighted and annotated all over the margins and in between lines.

"I'm already familiar with the story, so I know how it should be."

A soft voice called out from behind a nearby bookcase, "Ah, you're reading the story of Anri, are you not?"

The two boys looked up to see Zelda clutching a few books to her chest.

"You've read it before?" Marth asked.

Zelda chuckled. "Last year in my English class, we had to do an entire performance of it. You are correct that in English it lacks a certain...punch. So I looked up in my own time the original Altean version and, using a dictionary, did my own translation." She took a seat across from Marth at the table. "Rudimentary though it may be, I did have a lot of fun learning a new language and seeing a folk legend in a new light."

"It's a very important piece of work," Marth said. "As well as being extremely important to my own family, who are--"

Marth clamped his mouth shut. Zelda gave him a confused look.

"Who are...?"

"Who are...very much interested in folk legends," Marth said, knowing that though he may have saved it in Zelda's eyes, Roy looked less convinced. "My sister read it to me when I was younger as a bedtime story. I always found comfort in stories about heroes slaying dragons and such."

"It is an important story to the royal family of Altea as well," Zelda said. "It tells of the first king, after all. Their ancestor."

"And like most origin stories," Marth said, "a lot of them are completely fabricated to make the originator look good."

Zelda giggled. "Perhaps. Hyrule has a few tales itself that talk of heroes being reincarnated in a time of need, and goddesses blessing the lands and so forth. Some of them are rather...embarrassing to recite...and even more to believe."

"Do people really believe such legends as facts?" Roy asked.

Zelda nodded. "Certainly. Link's parents believe that he is a reincarnation of the first Hero of Hyrule. Link, of course, does not." Zelda studied Marth's copy of Anri's legend carefully. "You've made some rather detailed notes and comparisons, Marth...including corrections."

Marth flushed. "Yes, well... I would rather there be a more accurate English translation, with a bit more zest to it."

As Marth and Zelda chatted about The Hero's Way, Roy decided to start on a letter to his father. He wanted to tell him about the new friends he had made, how he was doing in school, how he had been sleeping... All of the things he knew his father would ask, or his retainer Marcus would be worried about. Marcus... Marth's guardian sounded a lot like him, the kind to always worry and overthink things, although Marcus didn't seem as strict as this Jagen fellow. Whilst Marcus knew that it was important that Roy knew how to be the Pheraean marquess when his time came, he let Roy experience so many different things, especially when it came to people. Marcus would accompany Roy to the market. To various school events. Hell, Roy wasn't even privately tutored like his grandfather had been, and didn't go to the same fancy school that his father had. And Marcus certainly didn't tell Roy to keep his lineage or the fact that he had noble blood a secret, even during feuds between various countries. Even if he did, it would be moot point, since everyone knew his face.

"I must excuse myself," Zelda said, as her mobile vibrated against the tabletop. "That's probably Impa. It was great talking to you, Marth, and I hope we have many conversations like this to come."

Marth nodded with a smile. "The pleasure was mine, Zelda."

Zelda left the library as she answered her mobile, and Marth's smile turned to a frown when he saw the look on Roy's face.

"What?"

"There's something I want to ask you, Marth."

Marth shuffled through his school papers. "What would that be?"

"How do people not recognise you on the street as the Prince of Altea?"

Marth opened his maths textbook to the page he had bookmarked with his pencil. "It's rare to see any of the royal family save for the currently reigning king and queen, so few have seen my face. And the names of the royal children are considered 'sacred', so no one really knows my name, just a nickname." He sighed. "Although I am...pretty sure half of the school already knows." He remembered the first day of school, and all of the whispers in the halls. "Either they know or they at least suspect. Perhaps Jiol himself has already outed me, in which case there's literally no point to anything, is there?"

"I'm sure there are dots that they can connect through other means, especially if you have relatives who are less private about things," Roy said.

"But Jagen reasons if I stick to my story, it casts a lot of doubt, doesn't it? Especially if all they do is read gimmicky clickbait articles that are full of mostly conspiracy theories. Jiol wants a completely positive identification on me before he makes his move."

Roy set his pen down. "Surely he wouldn't come to a school and try to murder you, especially in a place where the rules are different and he could quickly be brought to justice."

Marth tapped his phone screen as he checked his answers. "You do not know what King Jiol is capable of. If he finds out where I am, he could try to set up an ambush. He doesn't care if others get caught up in it, either. So please, keep this between us." He looked up at Roy.

"On my father's name, I promise," Roy said, as he tapped his fingers on the table. "But they announced your name in the halls, calling you Altea's prince. If this Jiol has spies in the school, surely _he_ knows your name."

Marth's face was grim. "He's family, so yes, he does. And to be honest, I feel this charade has been over for quite some time now, if Jagen's plan even worked at all." Marth had his doubts, though he went along with the plan anyway. He placed his hand on top of Roy's. "As my friend..."

Roy placed his hand on top of Marth's. "I'm not going anywhere, Marth. You're not as helpless as they think. Maybe they think they've isolated you, pushed you into a corner and left you helpless. But all they've done is drive you into the arms of new allies."

Marth's shoulders relaxed just a little. "I would hate to involve Pherae into this mess and cause trouble."

Roy smiled. "My father is a great mediator, but he would send aid without hesitation, and convince the rest of the Lycian League to send reinforcements if so needed...and also provide shelter should you need it." He bit his lip. "If you and yours had reached out to us, perhaps we could've helped avoid--"

Marth shook his head. "It would have made no difference. But I thank you regardless."

In Marth's mind, nothing would have made a difference, the outcome would've been the same, and who would want to protect a prince that wasn't even theirs in the first place?

"Do you...do you feel better?" Roy asked.

"I must admit, I do, even if it's only a little."

They did not unclasp their hands right away.

* * *

_My dear sister Elice,_

_I know Jagen recommended we not send written correspondence, but it feels wrong for me to be away from you and not send you a letter. I suppose one could blame my upbringing for that. I know we spoke on the phone yesterday, but there isn't a way to relive phone conversations and relish them, unless one records them. Regardless, it wasn't a conversation I would wish to remember, if only because the news you brought was rather disconcerting in nature._

_Salutations out of the way... Life here at The Manse isn't terrible, though I've only been here for not even a week, I've quickly settled into a routine. I have a roommate, a lord from Pherae named Elroy Pherae, although he prefers to be called Roy. He's been great company, and I deeply value his company and our budding friendship. There is also another boy whom I've befriended by the name of Link Mekkai, all the way from Hyrule. I know you've talked of going there to trawl through the Royal Library and their selection of magic tomes. By meeting him I also met Hyrule's princess, Zelda, who is as knowledgeable as the people claim, if not moreso. I feel you and her would get along splendidly. Perhaps one day I can introduce the two of you._

_How are things with you and Jagen? Please don't worry overmuch about me--I eat three meals a day, I'm doing well in school, I'm making friends, I try to get my required nightly rest, and I've even joined the fencing club so I can keep my skills sharp. I know Father would be pleased; I hope you are as well. After all, I need to excel if I hope to become king someday._

The rest of the sentence was covered in ink splotches from Marth tossing his fountain pen down, but he didn't care. He knew his words, though encouraging, were actually quite hollow, and who was he kidding with that last sentence? Elice would never buy it. Marth didn't even buy it, and he wrote it. There was no guarantee Altea would even exist by then.

_Please give Jagen my regards._

He wanted to write about how Jagen's plan was flawed. That everyone pretty much knew who he was. That people mocked him, whispered about him, scorned him, acted like he was a pariah. Marth could deny all he wanted, could lie all he wanted, but everyone knew. It was an open secret at this point. He knew better than to do so, however. He wanted to paint a picture for his sister that he was fine, that everything was going great, that his heart wasn't so overly full of grief and pain that it sagged heavily against his ribs. That he often thought of handing himself over to Jiol personally so the misery could end and he could die with a smile on his face knowing Altea's people were safe, albeit now ruled by a tyrant consumed by jealousy and anger.

_And continue to pray for Cousin Emmeryn._ The cousin who had last been seen running from Jiol's men, drawing them away from him so that they could escape. If anything happened to her... Marth would end up blaming himself. He knew that.

_Love always, your brother,_

_Marth_

Marth sighed as he folded up his letter and placed it in the envelope. He looked over to the other side of the room, where Roy was hunched over his desk, penning his own letter to his family. Marth left the envelope on his desk and crossed over to his bed where his pajamas were.

"I'll be heading off," Marth said, grabbing the sleepwear before heading to the bathroom to change.

"I probably will be too," Roy said. "I can finish up the rest of my homework tomorrow, it's almost midnight."

Marth came back out and tossed his dirty clothes in the hamper just inside the bathroom door.

"Are there ever things you want to tell in your letters home, but you find yourself unable to write them out for fear of upsetting the person who will read it?"

Roy swiveled around in his chair. "I've never been able to not tell my father something, but I know I can be candid with him and feel no judgment." Roy headed for his bed, already clad in his sleepwear. "Maybe that's what you're afraid of? Judgment?"

Marth shrugged as he climbed into bed. "I don't like to upset my sister, but she's really the only one in my family I can be open with.. I don't want to burden her with my thoughts when she has her own to deal with."

"Marth, you're not a burden," Roy said, trying to stifle a yawn.

Marth felt the complete opposite. Besides, there was more important things in his life than dealing with his feelings. He knew that sooner or later, he would have to set aside time to sort them out properly, but now was not the time to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things to note, I suppose, because I have been getting hit up in DMs with questions about different things.
> 
> Everyone looks how they do in Melee, which means that Roy is a bit on the boyish side, and both Link and Zelda and Young Link look as they do in Ocarina of Time. Link's backstory is in part taken from the Ocarina of Time manga, in fact. Marth's backstory is canon compliant in terms of his origin game (Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon) up to a certain point. Basically the prologue happened and...not much else, because Marth ended up escaping to Nintendia instead of Talys. Roy's backstory is canon compliant with a couple of changes, such as Lord Hector being alive, and Zephiel merely being forcibly abdicated from Bern's throne.
> 
> Roy's "real" name isn't actually Elroy, but I read that that is apparently some fan theory, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to put it in there because hey, it fits. He goes by Roy because he likes that better, and so there is less confusion between him and his father, Eliwood.


	5. September 26th, 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today is the Pep Rally that seems to lack the "pep" part. Marth finally gets news from home, but there's dissonance between what he's reading and how he's feeling. Can a teacher (or anyone, really) consume too many Corn Flakes? is a question Marth likely never wondered until fifth period, where his teacher seems to have a penchant for them. Will Mewtwo ever be okay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was on the more difficult side to write, simply because I couldn't remember exactly what went on at pep rallies. Then I remembered that this is Melee Academy. Nothing ever goes to plan. Why would a pep rally ever go as it should go?
> 
> Nothing ever goes as it should go in Melee Academy.
> 
> Also I feel like I should apologise for both Aras and L'Andrea, especially in how Aras talks, which is worse than how L'Andrea does.

_September 26th, 2014_

"So today is a...pep rally," Roy said, as he browsed the calendar of events on the Academy's official Facebook page on his phone. It was a sunny, warm day, perfect weather for walking to school before it turned too humid to function. "What exactly is a pep rally?"

Marth shrugged. His mood had been steadily improving over the past few weeks thanks to some talks with Roy, combined with finally acclimating to school life and a sense of normalcy. Marth wouldn't call himself 'okay', but 'better relatively speaking' worked just fine for him.

"It sounds like what one does when rallying the troops for some sort of pep talk," Marth said.

"Don't think too hard about it," Link said, thumbs hooking through the straps of his backpack. "It's just a boring event where we miss the last two periods of the day to sit in the bleachers outside and listen to people talking about how awesome our sports teams are, even though the football team hasn't won a game in...ten years I think Falcon said. And don't even get him started on the state of our soccer teams..."

"What about the fact that they play a sport here called 'football' that is played with their _hands_ ," Marth said, to which Link shrugged. "Perhaps they would have better luck if they played it correctly."

A truck roared past, the back wheel of the trailer jumping the curb as it took a wide right turn even wider than it should have, nearly careening into a parked car and flipping over. There was yelling that other passersby paid no mind to, as if this happened all the time.

"But it's an excuse to not be in class, so most people don't care, they'll half-heartedly cheer and whatever. Most people just get their attendance taken and then skip out to eat at different places."

The fence surrounding the school campus was decorated with balloons in the school colours of black, white, and orange, and handmade banners and posters with way too much glitter were tied to it to show support for the Melee Academy Smashers, which was the name of all the sports teams at the Academy. Poorly made stuffed versions of the school mascot, the Sandbag Smasher, were tied to the tips of the posts. Many students, in lieu of their white button down shirts and bright blue blazers, wore their sports jerseys or uniforms with their dress slacks. A line of cheerleaders, all dressed in their summer cheer uniforms that, to Marth's surprise, didn't show any midriffs or too much leg, gathered by the entrance and did a cheer whenever someone wearing one went by. Some did cartwheels at such speed around the bottom step that they looked like a white, black, and orange blur.

"Guess we won't see much of Zel today," Link said with a sigh. "She's gonna be cheering all day."

"I didn't know she was part of the cheering squad," Marth said, as they walked past the main walkway and instead went through the doors of their usual entrance, that of the new-but-not-really-new building.

"She's the head cheerleader," Link said, sounding proud. "She takes it pretty seriously, but that's to be expected as a leader, I reckon."

The hallway was pretty empty, much to Marth's surprise, but figured those involved in the pep rally were off preparing for it. Roy made quick work of the lock as everyone got their things together for the day.

"Attention students!"

"What now?" Marth asked, wincing a little at the too high pitched voice that came booming from the intercom.

"Due to the pep rally, uniform dress code has been relaxed! If you have any clothing showcasing your school pride, feel free to wear it!"

Roy shook his head as he shoved his biology textbook in his bag.

"Why say that _now_ instead of, I dunno, the days leading up to it?"

Link shrugged. "I think people bring that stuff but aren't sure if they can wear it. Zelda has friends who always keep their 'spirit gear' in their lockers just in case." He shut the locker and secured the lock.

"Do you have spirit gear or whatever?" Roy asked, reshouldering his bag as they headed for the second floor of the main building.

Link laughed. "No. Pretty much the only ones who do are either involved in the sport or whatever already, or they're like, dating someone involved, or just wanna support a friend. Zelda's tried to get me involved in that kind of stuff but I find a forty dollar sweatshirt I can only wear during high school a bit...much."

Outside of room 221, Aras stood in a hoodie and sweats emblazoned with Sandbag Smasher's likeness, face paint in the school colours all over her face. Alex stood proudly in his male cheerleading uniform, the barest hint of glitter gracing the area under his right eye. Even Stephen's emo fringe was temporarily dyed bright orange with streaks of black. The one who would've won a School Spirit Contest, if Melee Academy bothered with such a thing, would've been Stephanie, with her cute Sandbag inspired outfit covered in glitter and plenty of tulle.

"We're locked out," Frankie said from the floor, his dress shirt mostly unbuttoned, revealing a band tee with Japanese writing on it. His Japanese textbook was precariously perched on top of his knees, notebook open on top of it. "Mewtwo-sensei is in there sipping a cup of coffee, blaring the 2BA Master CD--don't ask me how I know that, by the way--and burning holes with his eyes into the back wall."

Marth peered into the window of the door, and sure enough, there were two rather sizable burn holes in the back wall, where at one point there were some cheap calligraphy paintings hanging from a nail embedded in the drywall.

"Is he... Is Mewtwo-sensei gonna be daijoubu?" Aras asked, having no concept of an indoor voice at all.

"When has Sensei ever been okay?" Dean asked from his place on the floor next to Frankie.

The door shot open then, causing Dean to spill his handful of Doritos all over the floor. A voice bid them to enter, which could barely be heard over the dulcet tones of Together Forever. Aras couldn't hear it over the music blaring from her headphones, something about a farewell to Mars, because someone shot their pigs. Aras' brow furrowed before she switched the song to something that maybe made sense, with lines such as "can't you hear my happy" and "I don't need your awesome". 

"This. Is. a bop desu!" she yelled out. "Too bad it's in Eigo, the original Nihongo was so sugoi and kanpeki desu, and then they had to take it and ruin it with English kotoba! What bakas. I should korosu them."

Alex was the lucky one subjected to Aras' rant about how NAKED DANCE was definitely better in Japanese than in English, and how Japanese was the superior language in all things anime, due to being across the aisle from her.

"You know, Aras, not all dubs are bad," Alex said, as Mewtwo turned his music off and poured himself another cup of coffee. "Some of them aren't really bad. Things have changed in like, ten years..."

"Urusai!" she yelled. "Or else."

Alex squared his shoulders. "Or else what?"

"Or else _omae wo korosu_."

Dean turned around in his seat to look at them both, offering Alex a bag of Doritos.

"What the hell does that even mean?"

Aras shrugged before making a little hmph! noise, arms folded.

"Why should I tell you bakas anyway?"

"Where did you learn a phrase like that, Aras-san?" Mewtwo asked, as he went about getting his attendance book in order.

"From anime, sensei. It's educational!"

Stephanie snorted, tapping away at her 3DS, whilst Stephen just shook his head at the cringe.

"In this, the tee why oh oh ehl 2014, we have someone quoting an anime from the 90s that no one's given a shit about since like 2003."

Alex tapped his fingers on his desk. "I...still watch it from time to time, you know."

Stephen rolled his eyes.

"What? It's like comfort food! It's not great but it makes you feel good inside."

Mewtwo marked everyone in as present except for one Gary Stu, whose seat was occupied instead by Aras' Sailor Moon themed backpack.

"Enough about old anime," Mewtwo said, trying to bring the class to order. "Kiritsu!"

Everyone stood except Aras, who was now listening to something else on her iPod. She bopped her head happily until she ended up forced to her feet by Mewtwo's telekinesis.

"This class is a disaster," Marth muttered.

"There's always one in every Japanese class," Link said. "Just roll with it, she'll either drop after this year, or grow out of her weeaboo ways and grow actual respect for Japanese."

"Ohayou gozaimasu, minna-san," Mewtwo said in his usual monotone.

"Ohayou gozaimasu, sensei," said the class, except Aras who was busy mouthing along with Moonlight Densetsu.

"Rei!" Mewtwo barely bowed, whilst the rest bowed deep enough to be considered somewhat respectful to their teacher. Except Aras. With a simple hand movement, Aras's forehead connected with the desktop as he forced her to bow.

"I hope you've all done your homework," Mewtwo said, as everyone sat down as one. "It doesn't affect me regardless of whether you did or not, it's easier for me to write a zero than an actual letter grade anyway."

Marth pulled out the hiragana packet Mewtwo had assigned as a "long term homework assignment". His of course was impeccably neat, his strokes almost flawless. Roy's was decent, with most things filled in, many of the kanji glossed over. Link's, on the other hand...

"I'm...finding it hard to adjust to hiragana," Link confessed, his hiragana looking more like hangul. "It's nothing like Hylian script, that's for sure." Many of the answer lines were blank.

"Maybe you should've taken Hylian instead," Roy said.

"Yeah, but I feel like that wouldn't have offered me any challenge."

Mewtwo grabbed the packets without leaving the comfort of his desk. All of them were filled out, but one was missing.

"Aras-san, kimi no shukudai ga arimasu ka."

"Nani?"

Mewtwo sighed. "Do you have your homework?"

"We had homework?!"

Mewtwo wrote a zero next to her name. "Why should I even be shocked at this point at your blatant disregard for your coursework here, Aras-san? Why do you even take this class?"

Aras pulled out a picture of a rather generic looking anime bishounen.

"I came here to see if I could find some kawaii boifurendo who loves all my fave animes and thinks all my anime boifurendos are sugoi."

After another gulp of coffee, Mewtwo said, "Perhaps you should find a different language class to take if that's your goal."

"Yeah, there's a dating site now called 'Weebs4Weebs'," Frankie said. "Not that...I've had personal experience for anything with it! But it's out there."

"Can I find a real life Tamahome there?"

"As someone who _has_ used the site," L'Andrea chimed in, "no. You can't find a real life Tamahome, but I did find a cute Duo Maxwell. We've been dating for two months. His name is Tom."

"I thought Heero was your ichiban," Aras said. "That's a top ten anime betrayal, L'Andrea-chan. Dame desu. You are a warui person, cheating on your anime koibito like that."

Marth felt a headache coming on as L'Andrea and Aras got into an argument about whether one could date multiple "bishies" or if L'Andrea was, in fact, a dirty cheater. "What are they even blabbering about?"

Roy shrugged. "I'm not really up on my anime stuff, but Aras sounds really serious about this Heero Yuy guy."

"The part I'm struggling with is the fact that they're talking about fictional characters like they can actually marry them." Marth winced when Aras shrieked, "Yatsu! How dare you betray your husbando!  Tsuki ni kawatte, oshiokiyo!"

Link laughed. "Man, do I have some shit to show y'all on the internet later."

Marth didn't want to know. He just wanted the day to be over already.

"Turn your textbooks to page 364," Mewtwo said.

"Sensei, this is all in Japanese, none of us can really read it," Dean remarked. "Did you mean page 64?"

Mewtwo gave him a look. "Dean-san, omae wa Nihongo no sensei da ka."

Dean backed up in his seat a little as Mewtwo came towards him. "Um... Ch-Chigaimasu, boku wa Nihongo no sensei...nai yo?"

"Then turn to the page I told you to and be quiet."

Dean gulped. "H-Hai, sensei..."

Marth had to give Mewtwo kudos for trying to teach a lesson on how to address family members as L'Andrea and Aras bickered about whether this Heero Yuy guy would be attracted to either of them.

* * *

Marth tugged at his one size too large gym uniform as he watched one of the other classes play a rather aggressive version of volleyball.

"Fuck you, Wilson!" yelled a boy, who nailed the volleyball over the net with such force that the ball ended up with a dent on one side.

"Do you think we'll actually be firing arrows today?" Roy asked. "Or will there be more excuses as to why it's not a good idea to let a group of fifteen year olds fire sharp pointy things?"

Marth shrugged as Ms Aran wheeled out a bunch of equipment.

"Okay, gather 'round." She gestured to the display stand full of bows. "Today...we will be holding bows. If you behave, we _might_ fire off some arrows."

Link vibrated against Marth's side.

"We have approximately _two_ left handed bows for those who need one."

Link held up one. Marth had no idea when Link managed to even grab one.

"First, everyone grab a bow. I'll need to teach you proper technique."

"We've been _over_ proper techniques already, Ms Aran!" yelled Nicholas. "Can't we just shoot already? It's been almost a week."

"Yeah, if you don't trust us, then maybe they should get rid of archery as a thing that is taught," said another student, whose name Marth didn't know or care to know anyway. 

Ms Aran held up a fistful of arrows. "You know what? Knock yourselves out. But if you forget any basic safety rules, you'll be out of archery for the rest of the marking period."

"It's never a good sign when your teacher is just. Done with everyone and we're not even through one full month of school yet," Link said, nocking an arrow. He pulled back on the bowstring, took aim, and let it loose, hitting the target dead in the centre. Bullseye.

"You've done this before," Roy said, as he sent an arrow through the air that almost missed the target completely.

Link grinned. "It's one of my favourite things to do for stress relief back home. What about you?"

"I've done this maybe a handful of times at most. My wet nurse was an accomplished archer, and she tried to teach me when she was teaching her son... I didn't pick it up all that well, but Wolt's a natural for it."

Marth looked at the bow in his hand and then at the targets.

"What's wrong, Marth?" Link asked, as he fired his last arrow. "You have long sleeves on, gives you an advantage since they don't give us gauntlets here, so it won't sting so much."

_Maybe if I run out in front of the targets, I'll get hit by multiple arrows. Maybe fatally--_

"Marth?" Roy gave him a look of concern. "Are you okay?"

Marth grabbed an arrow and nocked it, his hands trembling slightly as the urge to play the role of an archery target threatened to take complete hold of him. "Hm? Oh, I'm fine, Roy."

"You were looking dreamily at the targets," Link added. "Almost...longingly." Link lowered his bow to his side, clapping a hand on Marth's shoulder. "I don't think you want these guys trying to like, shoot an apple off your head or something."

The arrow Roy shot pierced through one of the award banners hanging from the ceiling.

"Especially not Roy."

"Kusoyarou!" Aras cried, as L'Andrea stuck her tongue out. "Get out of my way, baka!"

L'Andrea kept her feet firmly planted in front of Aras' target. "Jama shinai yo, anta."

Aras nocked an arrow and aimed right for L'Andrea's head. "Oh, so you want me to korosu you then? Maa, so be it then, ama. Shine!" She let the arrow fly, and it ended up embedded in the gym floor about a meter away from where she stood. L'Andrea stared at it for a brief moment before laughing.

"Omae no archery wa totemo heta da na," L'Andrea said, taunting Aras' archery skill, or rather, her lack thereof.

There was no time for anyone to gloat, for Ms Aran grabbed the two of them by the arm and dragged them off to the athletics office just off the gym. Even with the door closed, the class could hear Ms Aran laying into the both of them for their display of stupidity.

"I think I can get behind her reluctance to let any of us use live weaponry," Marth said, finally loosing his arrow. It hit the wall behind the target and broke in two.

"I think Aras would be dangerous even with a spoon," Link remarked, as the other gym classes headed for the locker rooms. "Like, is she still salty because oh no, someone insulted her anime boyfriend or whatever?"

"She seems like the type to keep a grudge," Roy said, as everyone dropped their bows and arrows and made their way to the locker rooms. "But then again I guess L'Andrea doesn't seem like she wants to drop it."

Once inside the locker room, Link unabashedly shed his shirt like many of his classmates as they headed towards their respective gym lockers. They weren't all that large, barely big enough to fit a pair of shoes, pants, shirt, and whatever else a student usually carried around. There were temporary use ones that were a lot bigger, similar to the ones that lined many of the school's halls, but there weren't enough of them to go around (Mr Hand was notoriously stingy), so many had to share one.

Link, clad in only his skivvies, jammed his gym clothes into a school branded tote bag Zelda had gifted him the previous year before locking his assigned locker, now devoid of anything useful except his tennis shoes. He sat on one of the benches as Roy fumbled with the lock on the blue stand locker. Marth's eyes darted around the room, trying to find a 'safe' place to undress, but all of the curtained changing areas were occupied already.

"Just take it off, Marth," Link said. "No one's looking, we all have the same parts--"

"I beg pardon?"

"Okay, okay, not all of us have the same parts," Link amended, "but I'm not gonna get into a complicated discussion about gender versus biology, okay?"

Roy pulled off his uniform, revealing that he decided against wearing an undershirt this morning. Marth sucked in a breath as his eyes focused on every inch of skin on Roy's torso. Shoulders a little on the broad side, some muscle on his abdomen... Roy's build was similar to his own.

"Wow," Link exhaled. "I had no idea you were quite ripped."

Roy's cheeks turned pink. "Link, please."

Link held up his hands in defence. "Listen, I've never seen you without a shirt on before, I am genuinely shook, okay? But uh..." He grinned. " _Marth_ here looks just as shook as I am, and you two room together." Link pushed up on Marth's chin, closing his mouth. When had it fallen open?

Marth's cheeks blazed just as Roy's deepened in colour.

"Hurry up and change," Link said, playfully pushing Marth's shoulder. "Otherwise you're gonna be stuck in this uniform where your pants are too big for your waist."

Reluctantly, under the harsh light of the overhead lamps, Marth pulled his shirt off, revealing a light blue undershirt. It clung to his gym shirt, not wanting to let it go, so Marth accidentally flashed Roy and Link a nice view of his own muscled torso. Once the uniform shirt was off, Marth quickly pulled his undershirt down, instantly making himself decent again.

"Just great," Link muttered, as Marth and Roy swapped out their sweats for their dress slacks. "I'm surrounded by hot guys. I feel so...inadequate."

"Says the guy who's still in his underwear," Marth retorted, tucking in his dress shirt before doing up his belt.

"Well y'all are in my way, so I can't even get my shit--"

The bell cut Link off. A flood of students exited out the single exit, leaving Marth fumbling with his shoelaces, Roy trying to lock up his actual locker, and Link fighting to retrieve his actual clothes.

* * *

"I hope everyone has their lab reports completed." No greetings, no beating around the bush trying to get the class settled, Mrs Fujimoto was no nonsense as she ambled around the front of the classroom, looking at each and every student over the tops of her glasses, which were a vibrant yellow today, matching the yellow, sunflower patterned pantsuit she wore under a stiff white lab coat. "If you don't, you'll get ten points off your final lab report grade for every day it's late."

Link shifted on his seat at the lab table, leaning over to Roy.

"You've got it, right?"

Roy nodded, pulling the stabled sheets of paper out of his biology binder. "I haven't missed a report yet."

"I can't even remember which one this is for," Link said. "Is this the lima bean one?"

Roy shook his head. "It's the one where we ID'd things in food, remember?"

"Nope."

"Well just take my word for it, it's done." He got up from his seat and handed it to Mrs Fujimoto.

"Well, Elroy--"

"Please call me Roy, ma'am."

"I look forward to reading another exceptionally worded lab report from you," she said with a smile, before Roy gave a sheepish little grin and returned to his place at the table.

Meanwhile, in room 415, Marth struggled to pay any attention to his chemistry teacher, Mr Bell. The words went in one ear and out the other, and nothing on the Smart Board made any sense to him, it may as well have been written in another language.

"So this is how you balance an equation..."

Marth sighed. _I don't really care about making sure equations are balanced, I'm never going to need this._

"So to balance this equation, what would you do, Mr Lowell?"

Marth looked at the equation, N2 + H2 = NH3.

"Put a two in front of the NH3," Marth said, "because you need to give the nitrogen two to match the one side."

Mr Bell wrote a 2 on the right side of the equals sign.

"We have to balance the other side now because we have six hydrogen on the other side, so we need six total on the first side. Put a 3 in front of the H2."

Mr Bell did so.

"See, our equation is now balanced." Mr Bell took a sip of coffee. "You have to get one side to balance, and in the process throw things back out of balance, in order to get the whole thing right. Once you get the hang of it, it's not that difficult!" He ignored the groans. "Let's try another equation."

Marth's phone buzzed twice in his pocket. He pulled it out and discovered a picture message in the group text chat he was part of with Roy and Link. It was a picture of an open textbook on a lab table. 

**< Roy:>** We're learning about water and carbon and how you need that for life. What're you learning?

**< Link:>** roy u better let me read ur notes and copy ur homework later

**Marth: >** Balancing chemical equations.

**< Roy:>** Is it hard?

**< Link:>** sounds rly boring

**Marth: >** It's not the most exciting thing I've ever dealt with, no. Most people are texting or asleep. I'd rather be doing anything else. Like jumping out a window.

In room 420, Mrs Fujimoto scribbled on the Smart Board notes about covalent bonds and how they worked and their function, and a chart of single, double, and triple bonded atoms.

"For our next little lab, we're going to be building ball and stick models of molecules. I want everyone to pick a molecule they would like to model... Starting with you, Elroy."

Roy sighed. She was never going to call him his preferred name.

"Um. Methane?"

Mrs Fujimoto smiled. "Methane is a good one... What about you, Purification?"

Purification grinned. "The oxygen molecule is my choice, Mrs Fujimoto."

**< Marth:>** I'm falling asleep myself.

Marth sent Roy a selfie with his head propped up by his hand, looking more bored than bored.

**Roy: >** At least class lets out in a couple of minutes.

**< Link:>** y did i get the shitty molecule for something i cant even spell :(

**< Link:>** mrs fujimoto hates me

**Roy: >** She'd like you more if you paid attention more.

**< Link:>** itd help if she actually taught us things instead of just talking to the ones sitting in the front row obviously sucking up to her

* * *

In room 302, Marth was one of five students in his study hall. Normally there were ten, but with the pep rally going on, half of the class was likely involved in preparations. Or maybe they skipped the class altogether. His teacher, Ms Kaminsky, didn't seem to care whether students showed up or not--she was often too busy watching videos on her laptop whilst binge eating Corn Flakes at her desk. Marth signed himself into the logbook Ms Kaminsky left on the desk nearest the door before grabbing a library pass and heading towards the fourth floor. The other four students who showed up seemed to follow suit. They all left without being noticed.

Unlike the rest of the students in his study hall, who merely took the passes so they had some kind of "get out of jail free card" with the hall monitors, Marth was actually headed for the library, where he spent most study halls either reading for leisure, doing homework, or reading for one of his classes. In other words, Marth used the study period as it was intended to be used. He grabbed an empty table and retrieved the needed items from his bag so he could get started on the next section of _Anri's Way_. He flipped open to the page he had dog-eared, removed the cap from his highlighter, and got to reading and highlighting different sections. His copy was a bilingual one, with the original Altean on the left hand pages, and the English translation on the right hand pages. Scribbled in the margins were Marth's attempts at retranslating different bits of text.

Marth's phone buzzed against the tabletop as he scribbled more notes. He glanced over to it and saw it was a message from his sister.

**< Elice:>** They found Emmeryn.

Marth dropped his pen and picked up his phone in its place, tapping a response out with his thumbs.

**Marth: >** Is she okay? Where was she found?

**< Elice:>** I don't have any more news at this time, just that she's been found. I don't know if she's alive and well, but I pray that she is.

A cold feeling washed over him then.

_If something did happen to her...there could be a catastrophic chain reaction._

In room 304N, Roy positioned and repositioned a wooden hand model situated on his desk. He picked up his pencil and made some preliminary strokes on a fresh, clean paper in his sketchbook. His teacher, Mr Tzezekev, spent an entire week on hands study alone, and that was before they could even pick up a pencil and sketch what they observed. The girl next to him wasn't sketching a hand at all, but was doodling something else that Roy couldn't make out.

"You must make the hand look as if it's going to reach out from the paper and grab you!" he said, his voice filled with such conviction and emotion that one boy gasped.

"I don't think anyone's capable of that yet," murmured another.

"Not with that attitude they aren't!"

Roy had to admit that this wasn't exactly what he was expecting when it came to Introduction to Drawing I. The teacher expected everyone to have a basic grasp already of various artistic processes, to be able to draw still life and such. Many had barely picked up a pencil but wanted to start learning, and Mr Tzezekev had expectations set too high.

"That hand looks like a wilted flower! Jason! You must _become_ the hand!"

"I don't want to become the hand," Jason retorted.

"Then you will never become an artist!" Tzezekev yelled in a rather strong Russo-Germanic accent. "And if that is the case, then get out of my class!"

Next door, in room 306N, Link and his classmates were invited to take pictures of mundane classroom objects at "interesting" angles to make them more "inspiring".

"Yes, yes, work it! You're doing great!" Link said, his finger on the camera shutter, taking picture after picture of a box of chalk. "You could be the best box of chalk on the market with these photos!"

Naturally, everyone gave Link wide berth, afraid to mess up his "picture vibe".

* * *

The bell for seventh period rang out, and immediately after, some music with the gain set way too high blared out, some generic sounding pop tune no one seemed to care about as everyone ducked into their respective classrooms. Roy and Link's Chorus teacher was strangely absent, and no substitute was anywhere in sight. All there was was a note on the piano asking students to sign in and to enjoy the pep rally. Roy and Link shared a look before shrugging and doing as the note said before heading down to the stadium.

In the main building, Marth took his seat in his Introduction to Creative Writing class, where Ms Kaminsky still sat at her desk, another bowl of Corn Flakes in her hand. She didn't address the class, but the chalkboard had all of the information the students needed. The bell rang again and the music cut off abruptly. If Marth was honest, he didn't know why this class was even offered when there was a grand total of three students in it, and the teacher didn't even teach anything at all. In fact the only thing she did was stare at them for a moment before, mouth full of milk and cereal, she asked, "Why are you guy still here? Go to the pep rally."

Marth contemplated not bothering with the pep rally at all and instead using his library pass to sit there and study or do anything remotely more useful or enjoyable. His legs took him to the fourth floor where the library was located, only to be confronted with a sign on the closed and locked doors stating that _Due to the pep rally, all library functions are suspended until tomorrow at 8:00 AM. Go Smashers!_

_Because of course_ , Marth thought, before he turned on his heel and headed to the stadium, one of the few students still inside the building proper.

The sun hit him as soon as he opened the doors leading to the breezeway, and it was a rather lovely day out, too lovely to spend cooped up in a school stadium cheering and hollering for sport teams he couldn't care less about. He could go anywhere in town if he chose, to a cafe or a park to read or write. He didn't have to spend it here. And with his mind running in absolute circles, perhaps a walk would help clear his head.

The gates leading out of campus from the breezeway were closed. Marth sighed, feeling incredibly put out by all these barriers like it was some kind of video game. He headed for the stadium, that being the only place he could feasibly go, and made sure to stay as far away from the crowds as possible as he carefully navigated the rather steep bleacher steps. Marth just wanted solitude, wanted time to process what his sister had told him.

They found Emmeryn. Who was "they"? Where was she found? Was she found alive, or was it her body that was found? Likely Elice didn't know the answers to these questions, but they nagged at him.

"Oi! Marth!"

Walking up the bleacher steps were Roy and Link; it was Link who waved his arms trying to get his attention. Roy looked like Link was dragging him along somewhat against his will.

"How did you find me?"

Link stopped on the step leading to the bleacher row Marth was in.

"Well, you're kinda out in the middle of nowhere." Link gestured behind him. "Everyone else is over there and here you are sitting in the shadows."

"I don't want to be here," Marth said.

"Think most people don't," Link said, sitting down next to Marth. Roy slid in on Marth's other side. "But they've got nothing better to do, so why not?"

In the middle of the football field were cheerleaders doing their routine to some peppy music. Marth didn't pay much attention to it, and Roy seemed to be focused more on him than the field.

"You okay?" Roy asked.

"Yeah... Yeah." Marth didn't sound convinced of himself. "I got news from home during fifth period, while I was studying, and I must admit it's been preoccupying my thoughts as of late."

Roy leaned closer. "Good news?"

Marth tilted his head a little. "Well...they... They supposedly found my cousin, Emmeryn."

Roy smiled a little. "That's great news."

"I suppose under these circumstances, when I know so little about the situation at home these days, something like this is 'good'. However...it's... I'm not sure if I should be seeing it as good news." Marth didn't know how he wanted to express his thoughts.

"No?"

"It's the wording of my sister's text," he said, pulling out his phone. "She wrote that they _found_ her. Granted, Emmeryn's been missing, but the feeling I get from that word, 'found', is just..." He sighed.

"Unsettling?"

Marth hummed a little. "Perhaps. Most likely, yes."

"So what are you expecting to hear next?" Roy asked, as the student body cheered, and in some instances, whistled for the cheerleaders.

"Hopefully something good." Marth watched Captain Falcon take center field, at the podium set up for speech making purposes. "I don't know if I could take another misfortune in my family."

The microphone gave a screech of feedback before Captain Falcon's voice boomed over the field.

"Welcome to another Melee Academy pep rally!" He paused for cheering, but the only response he got came from the cheerleaders. "I guess everyone's tired after their lunch periods... Wake up, everyone, and help us cheer on and support our sports teams!"

A half hearted cheer came from the crowd. Marth shook his head. Why bother with a pep rally if no one cared?

"We have our football team!"

"They suck!" yelled someone from the crowd. "They haven't won a game ever!"

"They haven't won a game in ten years," Link corrected. "And if you look at the team...you'll see why."

The Football Smashers consisted of the scrawniest members Marth had ever seen, so much so that the weight of their gear nearly crumpled them to the astroturf.

"I can't ever imagine how they've failed to lead their teammates to victory," Marth said, in the dryest tone possible. Link laughed.

"The Football Smashers would like to put on a demonstration to get you ramped! up! to the clouds!"

Roy groaned. Captain Falcon left the podium, and the Football Smashers filtered out onto the field, taking places as if in an actual game of doesn't-use-feet-Football was about to begin.

"Hike!"

They charged at each other, which only ended in the footballers falling to the ground in a mess. The ball fell to the ground.

"That was even worse than I'd imagined," Roy said. Captain Falcon clapped a little too enthusiastically.

"Wasn't that great?" he asked. "Doesn't that get you pumped up for our team?"

No one cheered.

"And now for a performance from our marching band!"

Marth stood. "I'm leaving."

Link looked up in alarm as Roy grabbed Marth's arm.

"You can't just _leave_ ," Roy said.

"Sure I can," Marth answered.

"They have everything blocked off," Link said. "Do you know how many people were grumpy they couldn't get a jump on the Chinese buffet that goes on every Friday? _A lot_ of people."

"I'll just leave through the front doors, or hop the fence... Whatever I have to do to get out of here."

Other students seemed to be filtering out of the stands.

"It wasn't this bad last year," Link said. "Campy, yeah, but it wasn't... It wasn't this bad."

Marth walked up the bleacher steps, Roy and Link not far behind him. He didn't have an exact destination in mind, but he needed to leave. He needed to process. He needed to _prepare_.

_What if Emmeryn isn't alive?_


End file.
